How large is a disk sector anyway?

Question

So, since ages I have been told that hard disks (I am specifically interested in HDDs and not SSDs) write data in units of 512 bytes, sectors. But when I interrogate the folder with stat . then I get told that blocks are 4096 bytes. How do I find out the sector size for the HDD and not the filesystem?

$ stat .
  Plik: .
  rozmiar: 4096         bloków: 8          bloki I/O: 4096   katalog
Urządzenie: fd01h/64769d    inody: 58327220    dowiązań: 8
Dostęp: (0755/drwxr-xr-x)  Uid: ( 1000/arkadiusz)   Gid: ( 1000/arkadiusz)
Dostęp:      2021-12-21 18:53:44.275157484 +0100
Modyfikacja: 2021-12-16 23:35:35.206793831 +0100
Zmiana:      2021-12-16 23:35:35.206793831 +0100
Utworzenie:  2018-09-09 04:23:32.113656998 +0200

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 22 '21 at 13:30

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Wiki clearly states that 512-byte sector is the normal, unless we are talking about Advanced Format standard of 4K (4096 bytes).

As per comment: use sudo fdisk -x /dev/sda to get all the info you are looking for.

edited Dec 22 '21 at 13:30

ArekBulski

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answered Dec 22 '21 at 12:23

Rownum Highart

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You did not answer my question. – ArekBulski Dec 22 '21 at 12:54
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Run this command on your system: sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda (if sda is the HDD in question) – Rownum Highart Dec 22 '21 at 13:23

How large is a disk sector anyway?

1 Answers1