Hard Disk Drive

What is Hard Disk 

A hard disk is a secondary and permanent data storage device that is placed in the system. It is similar to a human brain, where all the past and present events are stored. It is made up of a magnetic material that helps in storing data by following the magnetic recording techniques. The latest technology has reached up to 4-terabyte (TB) of storage space.

Hard Disk Available in different-different sizes

16GB,   (Old HDD today's it is not available)   

40GB,   (Available but old  HDD)

80GB,   (Available but old HDD)

120GB, 

160GB, 

250GB, 

320GB

500GB

1 TB

2TB

10TB

16TB

And coming more capacity in future  

Types of Hard Disks

The different hard disks specify the speed at which the hard disk transfers data and the reliability of the hard disk in terms of storing data. The different types of hard disk drives are:

•     IDE/PATA Drives
•     Serial ATA (SATA) Drives

Hard disks are of two types depending upon how it is connected to the system.

•    Internal Hard Disk Drives
•    External Hard Disk Drives

Internal Hard Disk Drives

 Internal Hard Disk Drives are connected inside the system using IDE/SATA connectors available on the motherboard.

IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics Hard Disk Drives.)    

The IDE interface specifies that the hard disk controller is built on the motherboard These drives are also called PATA (Parallel ATA) drives as it uses parallel communication, The ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) transfers data between the hard disk and system using 16 bits’ bus width with speeds of up to 133MB per second. You can connect two IDE drives e.g. one HDD and one CDROM drive or two HDDS to a single controller on the system. In case of two HDDS, you must set the one hard disk to Master and other to Slave using the jumpers on the hard disk, so that the system can identify the required hard disk. This hard disk uses a 40-pin connector to connect to the system.

SATA (Serial ATA) Hard Disk Drives

Serial ATA uses serial communication i.e. transfers data 1 bit at a time with the speed o up to 600 MB per second. SATA hard disk uses a smaller 7-wire cable to connect to the system. This cable can have a maximum length of 1 meter.

You can connect only one SATA hard disk to a SATA controller on the motherboard. This eliminates the need to set a hard disk as a master or slave. You can connect more than one hard disk by connecting them to different SATA controllers on the motherboard using separate cables.

External Hard Disk Drives

An External HDD is a portable storage device which is externally connected to a computer using high speed cables. The cables which are used to connect a computer, must be compatible with IDE, SCSI, IEEE 1394 (Firewire), eSATA and USB. The most commonly used cables are USB, eSATA and Firewire. External Hard disks except eSATA drives that use these interfaces consumes the required power from the port through which they are connected. External HDD also supports high-speed data transfer rate.

External hard drives are used to take back-ups of internal hard drives. External HDD provides additional storage space for the desktops, workstations, servers or laptops to add more drives.

Solid State Drive (SSD)

What is SSD ?

SSD is also called a solid state drive. It does not have any motor and there is no spinning disk. It uses the integrated circuit as a memory to store the data. SSD is made of semiconductor like the same RAM, but it is a permanent storage. Which can store the data permanently.

SSD comes with SATA Port as showing in image bellow

Advantages and disadvantages of SSD

Very High Speed: -  Its speed is multiplied faster than the normal Hard Drive

Resistant to Shock: - It's an Impact Resistant. If it ever falls down, it protects your                                                          computer's data from spoiling.

Power consumption: - It consumes very little power.

Long Lifespan: -SDD's life is very long because there is no moving part inside it

No noise: - SSD does not make any noise because there is no moving part in it.

Heat: - it has no heating problem