Moment of inertia is diagonal and torques around the axes act independently of each other. When a body is free to rotate around an axis, torque must be applied to change its angular momentum. The amount of torque needed to cause any given angular acceleration (the rate of change in angular velocity) is proportional to the moment of inertia of the body. Moment of inertia may be expressed in units of kilogram meter squared (kg·m) in SI units and pound-foot-second squared (lbf·ft·s) in imperial or US units. Moment of inertia plays the role in rotational kinetics that mass (inertia) plays in linear kinetics
Constant linear velocity run about 2.5 times as fast when recording at the inner rim of the disc as on the outer rim. Some high-speed recorders use the zoned CLV method (ZCLV), which divides the disc into stepped zones, each of which has its own constant linear velocity. At higher speeds, ZCLV offers a compromise between CAV, which enables faster seek times, and CLV, which enables greater storage capacity. A ZCLV recorder rated at "52X", for example, would write at 20X on the innermost zone and then progressively step up to 52X at the outer rim. Constant Angular Acceleration (CAA) is a variant