Hard Drive – What Is It, How Does It Works And More
Table of Contents
What is a Hard Drive?
The hard drives are data storage devices that can store in any digital information. Be it photos, videos, text files, or computer programs. The hard drive is one of the most important parts of any computer system.
In our online store, you can see an extensive catalog of hard drives where you will find the model that best suits your needs.
Since the first hard drives appeared in 1956, data storage technology has evolved by leaps and bounds, although its operation remains faithful to the foundations of the first hard drives.
How a Hard Drive Works
The operation of a hard disk is “simple,” the heads put magnetic marks along the tracks of the platter with 3 different positions, 1, 0, or neutral, and the computer systems can interpret this binary code as information. When we save a file to our hard drive, it writes a sequence of ones and zeros to the platters at speeds measured in microseconds.
Physical Structure of a Hard Disk
A hard drive has several internal components such as the platter, the reading needles, the outer casing, etc … here is a list of the different parts and their explanation:
- Platter: each of the discs that make up a hard drive called a platter, which can be single, 2 platters or even 4 platters, models
- Face: Each of the plates has 2 faces.
- Head: the head is responsible for reading and writing on the plates
- Track: a track is one of the circles that run on the disk in which the data stored on the platters.
The platters, the upper face of one of the discs, and if we looked at it with a microscope, we could see the tracks.
Hard Drive Sizes
There have been many sizes of hard drives, but currently, 2 sizes mostly used, 2.5 “for laptop hard drives and 3.5” for computer hard drives, external enclosures even NAS servers.
In the image above, we can see two hard drives. The big one is a 3.5 “hard drive and the small one a 2.5” one.
The Capacity of a Hard Disk
The capacities of hard drives have now reached 6TB, a capacity that far exceeds the first models that emerged commercially in which even a photo taken with a current SmartPhone would not fit.
On a 6TB hard drive, we can store up to 1,600,000 photos or 615 hours of video and up to 2,000,000 songs, more than enough storage for most users on the planet.
As a curiosity, we can find data centers that store more than 10 Exabytes on their servers. If when you read about Exabytes, you have stayed as I stayed for the first time, let’s count together how much 1 Exabyte is
- 1 Gigabyte = 1024 Megabytes
- 1 Petabyte = 1000 Terabytes
- and 1 Exabyte = 1000 Petabytes
What if we do Google accounts, for example, would have an estimate of 166,000 6TB hard drives (which is the current maximum capacity)
Conclusion
A hard disk used to store information, but something that we see so simple today is a marvel of modern engineering. On a hard drive, you can store the photos of a lifetime or all the music you love in a small space. If you allow me a tip to finish the article, Make backup copies!
Also Read: What is the hardware ? What is it for and definition
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