Definition: Low-level formatting


The process of creating sectors on the disk surface; this permits the operating system to use the regions needed to create the file structure. Also called initialization. Low-level formatting is often performed at manufacturing facilities or in highend technciacl data facilities. There is no need (in most scenarios) for a typical consumer to low-level format a hard drive.




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Mechanical Latencies

Include both seek time and rotational latency. Mechanical latencies are the main hindrance to higher performance in hard drives. The time delays of mechanical latencies are one hundred times higher than electronic (non-mechanical) latencies associated with the transferring of data. See also Seek Time, Rotational Latency.

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