Unlike magnetic disks, which have several concentric tracks, an optical disk has one long track, which starts at the outer edge and spirals inward to the center (see figure). This spiral track is ideal for reading large blocks of sequential data, such as music. However, it makes for slower random access time than the concentric tracks used by magnetic disks, whose sectors can be located faster because they are always found on a given track at a fixed distance from the center.
Like a track on a magnetic disk, the track of an optical disk is split up into sectors but with optical disks, each sector has the same length, regardless of whether it is located near the disks center or away from the center. This type of data organization allows data to be packed at maximum density over the entire disk. However, it also requires a more complicated drive mechanism because the rotation speed of the disk must vary inversely with the radium, the drive must slow down the disks rotation speed to read sectors towards the outside of the disk and speed it up to read sectors towards the center of the disk.
The cost-per –bit of storage is very low for optical disk because of their low cost and enormous storage density. They come in various sizes, ranging from 12-inch to 4.7 inch In diameter. The most popular is of 5.25 inch diameter whose capacity is around 650 megabytes. This storage capacity is equivalent to about 250000 pages of printed text or total capacity of 550 double sided, high-density floppy of the same size. This tremendous storage capacity makes optical disks the most suitable storage media for multimedia application. As optical disk have a single track, their storage capacity is multiple of the number of sectors and number of bytes per sector.
