Block dump
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A Block Dump is a small image that contains the sectors saved into it that were read off the original disc during the making of that certain block dump. It has many benefits; for one, if you are using a certain emulator to play games and you encounter a problem, instead of sending the whole image to the developers to see what caused that problem, you can just make a block dump of that image. One thing the block dump includes is all the data that your emulator read off your iso/image. This saves a lot of disk space and size. If the emulator read the first 50 sectors and reached the point where the emulator had that problem, you won't need to send all 500,000 sectors; just the first 50 sectors recorded will be enough for the developer to figure out what is causing the problem.
[edit] Example
One such example of block dump usage can be seen in the PS2 emulator for PC & Linux, PCSX2. One of its plug-ins (known as "linuzappaz ISO CDVD plugin") supports making block dumps. You only need to select "enable block dump" to start making the block dump of that certain CD/DVD/Image.
