Difference between revisions of "Hard Drives"
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
| − | + | ||
| + | {{1260Topic | ||
|Chapter_TOC=[[Hardware]] | |Chapter_TOC=[[Hardware]] | ||
Revision as of 17:49, 2 December 2008
IntroductionEdit: 1. Need at least a graphic. 2. Add a “Further Readings” section which will have at least two links to online resources on the topic. 3. Use sources and format the sources. 4. Do you mean platters by disks? This seems confusing with the alternate term "hard disk". 5. I don't think printers have hard drives in them, they would have a memory buffer but I doubt it requires enough storage for a hard drive. 6. Hard drives are storage devices, they store data. They are not memory which is used by the processor directly for immediately relevant data. The hard drive (also called a hard disk) is the primary computer storage device, which reads and writes on one or more disks. Hard drives are found in desktop and laptop computers as well as in servers and other mainframe computers. They are also used in printers for storing fonts and print jobs as well as digital music players and many other portable and stationary computer-based devices. Although removable hard drives in cartridges use the same media and similar drive technology, they are usually called external hard drives - see External Storage.
|
...by studentsThe first thing I do when buying a computer or laptop, is check its hard drive capacity, RAM size and CPU performance. The capacity of the hard drive is important to me, since I store a lot of music, pictures, and videos which all require a fair amount of memory. Recently, I had to purchase an external hard drive because I couldn’t store all my data on my 80GB laptop hard drive. The thing I don’t like about having an external hard drive is that whenever I go somewhere with my laptop and would like to access the data on my external drive, I have to carry it with me. It only takes about 20 DVD videos to fill up 100GB of memory space and now that you can watch videos on Blue-Ray disks that take up even more memory space, a hard drive with a memory capacity of 1TB (1000GB) could eventually be your next optimal hard drive. |
blah blah
|
Previous Page: UPDATE THIS LINK |
Next Page: UPDATE THIS LINK |
Lei Liu's comment:Some sentences are too long, I think breaking them into some shorter sentences is better.
How Hard Drives work:
A hard drive usually consists of several mirror smooth disks (also called platters). Each disk can be read and written from both sides by extremely light and fast heads, moved by an arm that is controlled by a mechanism at a corner of the hard drive. The arm of a hard drive can move from the hub to the edge and back up to 50 times per second.
Hard drives come in all kinds of sizes. Most Desktop Computers today use 3.5 inch disks whereas laptops and other mobile technologies use a smaller disk size, usually 2.5 inches. They also use fewer platters than Desktop hard drives since the amount of space required is often limited. Most hard drives use one platter and increasing the number of platters won't increase the physical size of the drive, it still needs to fit the form factor. Hard drives usually operate at 5400 or 7200 RPM on laptops and 10,000 to 15,000 RPM on Desktop Computers. I'd say most laptops -> 5400 desktops -> 7200, anything faster would be top of the line and uncommon
---possibly mention how a static hard drive works in this section since it is mentioned further in another section.
Function of a Hard Drive:
The hard drive in a Computer is able to store a large amount of data for any given period of time without any energy consumption meaning that it is non-volatile, unlike memory devices used in a computer that require constant energy supply. For example, RAM is used for storing data, but it is only able to store data when having constant power supply. As soon as the RAM's power supply stops all data stored on it will be lost.
Hard Drives in the future:
Most non-volatile hard drives used today are not solid state hard drives. This means that these hard drives still contain movable parts, like disks and moving arms, which can be easily damaged when not being handled with care. Some of today’s computers already contain static memory which has no moving parts. An example of this is a flash drive which is more expensive but therefore also more durable. I'd trust my hard drive more than a flash drive, they're made with the notion that the memory won't last
History:
Most hard drives used today are not solid state hard drives. This means that these hard drives contain movable parts like rotating disks and moving arms which can be easily damaged when not being handled with care. Some of today’s computers already have Solid State (static) hard drives that have no movable parts and operate just like Flash Drives. Solid State Drives compared to conventional hard drives wear out slower, don’t break as easily and have less power consumption, but its storage capacity can be very limited. As of 2008, Solid State Drives can be bought with a storage capacity of 64GB, and with storage capacity doubling every 1 to 2 years, Solid State Drives will be very common in future.
Lei Liu's comment: Put the history before future part is better, reorganize the two parts.
References
http://www.computerworld.com/common/images/site/features/2008/042008/ST%20506%201_edited-1.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BRL61-IBM_305_RAMAC.jpeg
http://img.clubic.com/photo/00031402.jpg
www.howstuffworks.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_drive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_drive
