Hard Drivesaka Hard Disk Drives

Internal, External, and New Solid State Drives

Hard Drives

Purpose: Hard drives are used as a main storage in desktop PCs, workstations, and servers. The hard drive is what stores all of your data.

How does it work? Data is stored on a stack of disks that are inside a solid encasement. The disks spin extremely fast , usually between 5400 or 7200 RPM. This is so data can be accessed immediately from anywhere on the drive. Data is stored on the hard drive magnetically, so it stays on the drive even after the power supply is turned off.

Definition: Device for storing information in a fixed location within your computer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eMWG3fwiEU

The following link shows a video of how a hard drive works.

Hard Drive Types

• The Parallel Advanced Technology Attachment (PATA), the Serial ATA (SATA), and the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) are types of hard drives that are most commonly used in today's computers.

• Solid State Drives (SSD) do not have spinning magnetic disks that collects the data, instead they use semiconductors for this purpose.

Examples of Hard Drives

Internal and External Hard Drives

How Hard Disks Work

The following explains how a hard disk works and has a video on how to add a hard drive.

• http://www.howstuffworks.com/hard-disk.htm

Price Range

• External Hard Drives range in price from around $50-$120 and can be purchased through Amazon.com along with many office supply stores that carry computers.

• Internal Hard Drives range in price from around $40-$150 and can also be purchased through Amazon.com.

Replacement

• Replacing a hard drive is a relatively easy task, but can be time consuming. One would do this if you experience a hardware failure or want to increase speed or capacity.

• Most people could replace their hard drives with a little work, or you could have it done for a cost of up to $100.

• It seems to be cost effective to replace a hard drive on many computers.

Most Up-to-Date Part

• External Serial Advanced Technology Attachment or eSATA is an external interface for SATA technologies. It competes with FireWire 400 and universal serial bus (USB) 2.0 to provide fast data transfer speeds for external storage devices.

• USB 3.0 allows for a faster transfer rate.