Cylinder

Updated: 12/10/2023 by Computer Hope
Computer hard disk drive cylinder diagram

A cylinder is two corresponding tracks on a fixed disk. As the image shows, the red highlighted tracks correspond on each hard drive platter.

When an operating system writes data to a hard disk drive, it fills an entire cylinder before moving to the next cylinder.

Note

Because an SSD (solid-state drive) has no platter, it also has no cylinders.

CHS, Hard drive terms, Platter