High density

Disk density is a capacity designation on magnetic storage, usually floppy disks. Each designation describes a set of characteristics that can affect the areal density of a disk or the efficiency of the encoded data. Such characteristics include modulation method, track width, coercivity, and magnetic field direction.

Single density (SD or 1D) describes the first generation of floppy disks that use an iron oxide coating. Floppy drives utilize 300-oersted write heads, FM encoding, and a track width of 0.330 mm (0.0130 in) for a density of 48 tracks-per-inch (tpi) and 5876 bits-per-inch (bpi).

Double density (DD or 2D) doubles capacity over SD by replacing FM encoding with an improved line code, such as modified frequency modulation (MFM), modified modified frequency modulation (M²FM), FM/MFM or group coded recording (GCR).

SD (1D) and DD (2D) designations were generally identical to those of 8-inch disks.

Quad density (QD or 4D) doubles capacity over DD by narrowing the width of tracks to 0.160 mm (0.0063 in) for a density of 96 tpi. Some manufacturers (Micropolis, Tandon, Micro Peripherals (MPI), Teac) used a track density of 100 tpi for quad-density drives, which were incompatible with 96 tpi models.

High density (HD) improves capacity by utilizing a 96 tpi track density in conjunction with improved cobalt disk coating and stronger 600-oersted write heads, allowing 9646 bpi to be written.

Double density (DD) 3½-inch disks use an iron oxide coating, just as with 5¼-inch DD/QD disks. However, drives utilize stronger 670-oersted write heads and a narrower track width of 0.115 mm (0.0045 in) for a density of 135 tpi and 8717 bpi.

High density (HD) 3½-inch disks switch to a cobalt disk coating, just as with 5¼-inch HD disks. Drives use 700-oersted write heads for a density of 17434 bpi.

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