Sunday 2 October 2011

The Available Types Of Hard Drive

By Daniel Kilburn


Computers are made up of at least half a dozen components, each one with its own dedicated purpose. For storage, we always look to the hard drive. It's designed to store space for a very long time, such as years or even decades, with any degradation of the information within. While this is very dependent on maintenance and care, they're quite hardy devices. The average consumer is only aware of the storage space and focuses purely on this when purchasing, but there is a whole number of other details to pay attention to.

Storage space is indeed the most important aspect when purchasing a hard disk. The reality of the situation is that some users will require more space than others. Having terabytes of data for a new user only looking to store music might be overkill, as music is only ever a few megabytes per song. You'd literally need hundreds of thousands of songs to fill the limit. However, if you want to store music, films and games, that space will fill up quickly.

For example, while songs and videos never change size and therefore function well with most drives, games are always getting bigger. It won't be long before they move from DVDs - which are restricting their asset growth - and onto media with larger storage space. This means games installed onto a PC will be larger than ever. Instead of hundreds of games on a terabyte drive, you might only be able to fit tens, if that.

The disks have a lot more to them than storage space though. Older disk utilize and outdated ATA connection. It has a wide ribbon cable that connects it to the motherboard and has long been replaced by the SATA disks. They have thin, red cables that have more than double the transfer speeds.

Typically, the revolutions-per-minute (RPM) resides around 7200 for the average disk. The RPM determines how fast the information is found, read and wrote to the computer. They can go up to 10,000 for high-tier models, though this becomes more costly the higher it goes.

Another type is the Solid-State Disk, which doesn't utilize the rotary disk and instead has no moving parts whatsoever. This results in less storage space and slower transfers, but much faster seek times. For games in particular, this means less stuttering when it loads mid-game.

Solid-State Disks are very expensive because of their performance benefits. They're not found in the average computer as storage is usually more important. For the enthusiast, however, they're a must-have for the latest technology and getting an even better edge.

When choosing a hard drive, it's important to take many things into account for that tailored touch. Whether it's performance or storage, choose carefully and do your research. Large drives can be purchased for bargain prices as space becomes cheaper and cheaper.




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