Questions on CD's and Hard Drives

[Mixxen]

Why is it that data on CD's start from the inside track....and on hard drives data starts from the outside?

Wouldn't it make more sense for CD's to also start from the outter tracks???

 

[gsaldivar]

Hard drives don't have a variable spin rate, so there is a reason for using the outer tracks first.

For CD's I don't think it makes much of a difference either way - if it ain't broke, why fix it?

 

[Gunbuster]

so you can have CD single size disc's and CDR's

 

[Shooters]

I think it's just one of those things that started with the introduction of the CD and now the industry is so massive that it would be impractical to change it. Think about it, the home and car audio companies aren't going to change since CD music is only read at 1x anyway when used it a standard CD player. And if the they aren't going to change, then the people who make CDs certainly aren't going to either. But then let's say that the optical drive manufacturers change for the same reason that hard drives start reading from the outer edge. Sure, your copy of Windows might install a little faster, but then what happens when you pop in your favorite music CD which is meant to be read starting from the inner egdes of the disc? Houston.....we have a problem. See what I'm sayin'?

 

[Jiggz]

It's not necessarily true that HDD reads the outer track first before the inner track. During booting the HDD will always read from the MBR or the main boot sector which is the most inner track of the HDD and then the rest is wherever the data is stored or retrieved. True it'll write on the outer track first and always read from out to in tracks when retrieving, but this is only because the read head is like the spindle arm of the old vinyl records. Unlike the optical reader that rides a track, it always reads from inner to outer since data info is embedded on the most inner track like the mbr on the hdd... So the rule of the thumb is this. If it's magnetic it'll read from outer to inner tracks like the old vinyl record. When it's optical it'll be the other way around.