Last modified 01/27/2024

Hard disk drive – What is a hard disk drive ?

The hard disk (hard disk drive) is the principal storage source of the computer, because it contains all the information of the system. This great internal device perform its execution by using the RAM memory and the processor, and it is used to store, eliminate and copy any kind of document like videos, images, programs between others.


 

Normally it occupies the second place as memory after the RAM memory according to the base processor which can be found connected to the system.

It is structured a similar way as a hermetical closed box. When the data saving process starts, the heads begin to react by a reading and writing process so it can transport the information over the magnetic circular surface. The hard disk drive is actually covered mechanical and electromagnetic elements (static magnetic ribbons, sectors, means, cylinders and plates).

Each plate is built with concentric circles and means, and each mean is connected by sectors, so that way they can form the cylinders. Their correct performance depends on a controller card which is connected by wires with the colors red, yellow and black (5v, 12v and ground respectively)

The speed of the hard disk drive is denominated by revolutions per minute (RPM), besides it has an incorporated meter so you can know the exact speed of the hard disk drive performance. There are many speeds on the hard disk, and they can be modified according to the data bus transference process developed by the disk, for example the disk IDE belongs to the format of the kind SATA, it can reach speeds between 5600 RPM and 7200 RPM, and it is connected directly to the mother core.

There are also the disks SCSI with speeds between 1000 RPM and 1500 RPM which are connected to the interface of the system. To find the level of storage and the speed of transference in theory, it only develops a product with the number of cylinders, sectors, and plates and a common multiplicative (512 bytes/sectors), finally the result will be the capacity according to the order of GB (a million of bytes).

To exactly determinate the speed of the data transference or also known as reading/writing speed, it has to multiply the total of means (# sectors*512 bytes/sectors) with the partial velocity of rotation (RPM*60secs/minutes), the obtained result will point essential operations speed performed by the hard disk drive (saving, eliminating and copying files in MB per second).

Before starting to install the hard disk drive, first you should check if the mother core is really compatible with the kind of disk you count with, this activity is absolutely indispensable because some mother cores have a data transference process speed and storage capacity limit. There are some mother cores which cannot reach the speed beyond 137 GB.

After doing correctly the activity or process mentioned before, you must initiate the disk partition process so you can have many units on the system, it is recommendable to divide the disk into 2 units (C and D unit). The partition process helps to eliminate the risk of losing the entire data when you give format to the system.

The program will always be found on the C unit, which will be format if there is any menace of a strong virus attack, while the D unit must remain intact with the personal data of the user. It is recommendable to choose the NTFS partition option so you can have a better capacity of performance (until 2 TB per partition). Finally the installation of the operational system and other necessary programs must be done.

Actually these days on the market, you can find hard disks with capacity of 1TB and 2 TB (one thousand and two thousand of GB respectively). These disks were created in consequence of the great technologic requirement of the software, because it is really common to find games and videos with great demand of memory capacity due their high audio and video quality.

There is just one problem with these kinds of new hard disks and it is their really high price, they are too expensive actually, this is because there are still too many people using the standard way of storage (GB). Some other people use external disks like the USB to store even more information, which can be a really bad option if you want to save time with the data transference.



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