How a Hard drive Works.
Almost every computer in the world has one, a hard drive. Hard drives are commonly found in personal computers, digital video recorders, laptops, servers, and even some MP3 players and video cameras. Some devices even have more than one hard drive. They are vital in life today because they are used to store some of the world’s most important data, as well as our own personal pictures, videos, documents, and music.
Hard drives are used to store data for extended periods of time; they are used mostly in computers to be able to store data and later to be able to retrieve it. Hard drives do not require power to remember the data, which makes them very useful in computers. Hard drives come in several sizes and capacities, which makes them suitable for desktop computers as well as portable devices. The more capacity a hard drive has the more data that it can store, capacity is generally measured in Gigabytes but is sometimes also measured in Terabytes (one-thousand gigabytes.)
A hard drive’s dimensions do not vary by capacity. Hard drives found in desktop computers are 3.5” form factor which measures 4 inches wide by 5.75 inches long, and 1 inch tall. A 3.5” hard drive can store anywhere from just a few gigabytes to several terabytes. A hard drive looks like a small aluminum box with a circuit board on one side and just a label on the other side. The label contains data about who made the hard drive as well as when it was made, model name and number, the capacity, speed, and copyright information. On the side of the aluminum box there are connectors for the hard drive to connect to a computer as well as power.
Inside of the aluminum box there is a motor which moves the spindle. The platters, which reside on the spindle, contain the data. The data is transferred to and from the platters through read/write heads which rest on the actuator arm. Most hard drives have three to five platters and one read/write head on...