A physical sector is the smallest hardware addressable unit. Can and will often be the same size as a logical sector. With higher density on the platter of the hard disk and non hard disk devices (e.g. optical drives) it will be technically easier to use larger physical sectors and translate these to several logical sectors. Any translations between the two will be transparent to end user software.

See also: HDA overview image.

Comments? Let us know!   ATAREF/2 (C) 2007-2009 WTY Soft. All rights reserved (legal).