Apart from being one of the most essential parts of your computer, hard drive
storage is constantly updating, in terms of both capacity of disk space and in
physical size. When it comes time to upgrade your disk storage, there are a
number of factors for you to take into account. Once you've made basic decisions
about size, connectivity, speed and data transfer rate, and whether you want an
internal drive or external, you can search through Myshopping.com.au to find the
most suitable brand, and model, and compare the prices of different vendors.
Hard Drives
How A Hard Drive Works
Your hard drive has a number of magnetized platters connected to a spindle. The
spindle spins the platters at a very fast speed while a series of read/write
heads scan over them both looking for and writing information. This information
is transferred via a cable system, or through a wireless connection to a hard
disk controller, which in most systems is built into the motherboard, or in some
systems installed as an add-in card. The information that comes from your hard
drive through its controller is then made available to the components of your
computer. The effectiveness of your hard drive (its performance) depends on how
much of its capacity remains unused, how well organised the data is (known as
fragmentation) and its data transfer rate, which in turn is dependent on its
connection type and the drive's spin rate.
Internal Hard Drives
Most computers from, the most basic home models up to the most powerful servers,
have an internally installed hard drive. Technology today ensures that they are
all generally fast, reliable, and offer dependable storage ability. Most modern
computers have installation slots and cabling to enable you to install
additional hard drive. This allows you to increase your storage capacity without
giving up your existing hard drive.
Internal Hard Drives
External Hard Drives
These drives are essentially the same drives as ones installed inside computers,
but cased inside a protective, portable case. This is a good solution for people
who work remotely and need to transport large amounts of data. If an external
hard drive is your choice, make sure your computer is compatible with the
interface that the hard drive uses. An add-in card, such as a FireWire card can
help to increase your computer's capabilities. You can compare different brands
of external hard drives simply at Myshopping.com.au and search on the connection
type, or other specifications.
External Hard drives
Laptop Hard Drives
There have been many advances in miniaturization of hardware components for
laptop computing, and hard drive technology is not left out of this loop. Laptop
hard drives function in exactly the same way as internal hard drives on other
computers, only they are designed to provide maximum storage and efficiency in
the smallest possible package. For added flexibility, some laptop computers come
with removable hard drives that can be easily installed and removed. However,
before you buy a hard drive for your portable computer, check that the hard
drive's specifications will meet the standards of your computer, as many laptop
hard drives are proprietary, and are not compatible with other brands and
models.
Laptop Hard Drives
Size
Your hard drive stores your operating system, its programs (games and
applications), your working data, and your digital music and movies. Most new
computer purchases have a minimum of 80 GB of hard disk space; many have
considerably more. Hard drive space is one of those things, once you have it,
you'll find ways to fill it soon enough. There is no real rule of thumb, but
consider the cost per gigabyte of storage as a way to guide your purchase. If
you work with large files, such as music, video and graphics, it pays to have a
big storage space for your work. It may pay you to have two hard drives, one
that houses all your programs and applications, and another for storing your
work and projects.
You may want to compare the price of say a 160GB drive against two separate 80
GB drives. If one drive fails all is not lost. Today's hard drives however, are
fairly robust pieces of equipment and providing they are not abuse, will serve
you well for a long period of time.
up to 32 GB Hard Drives
32-64 GB Hard Drives
64-100 GB Hard Drives
100 GB and more Hard Drives
Interface
One key distinguishing factor between hard drives is the way in which they
connect to your computer. There are a number of basic types of connection
schemes used with hard drives. Each connection type has a range of differences
in performance.
IDE (INTEGRATED DRIVE ELECTRONICS)
This is by the most common connection methods. Because the hard drive controller
is on the drive itself rather than on the motherboard, it helps to keep costs
down. There different IDE standards available. Mostly, you will want to purchase
the fastest possible standard that your computer can support. Most computers
will support a standard that is faster than what the computer currently
supports, so you can buy a faster drive, and update your computer at a later
time. The different IDE standards, in order from most basic to fastest, are:
ATA (Basic). Supports up to two hard drives and features a 16-bit interface,
handling transfer speeds up to 8.3 MB per second.
ATA-2 or EIDE (Enhanced IDE). Supports transfer speeds up to 13.3 MB per second.
ATA-3. A minor upgrade to ATA-2 and offers transfer speeds up to 16.6 MB per
second.
Ultra-ATA (Ultra-DMA, ATA-33 or DMA-33). Dramatic speed improvements, with
transfer rates up to 33 MB per second.
ATA-66. A version of ATA that doubles transfer rates up to 66 MB per second.
ATA-100. An upgrade to the ATA standard supporting transfer rates up to 100 MB
per second.
ATA-133. Found mostly in AMD-based systems (not supported by Intel), with
transfer rates up to 133 MB per second.
IDE / EIDE Hard Drives
Serial ATA Hard Drives
Ultra DMA 100 Hard Drives
SCSI (SMALL COMPUTER SYSTEM INTERFACE)
This is the hard drive interface standard used by many high-end PCs, networks
and servers, and Apple Macintosh computers, except for the earliest Macs and the
newer iMacs. While some systems support SCSI controllers on their motherboards,
most feature a SCSI controller add-in card. SCSI drives are usually faster and
more reliable, and the SCSI interface supports the connection of many more
drives than IDE. While SCSI drives come in many different standards, many of
them are not compatible with one another. So it's important be know that your
computer supports the drive you plan to install. The different SCSI connections
are:
SCSI-1. A basic connection using a 25-pin connector, supporting transfer rates
up to 4 MB per second.
SCSI-2. Uses a 50-pin connector and supports multiple devices with a transfer
rate of 4MB per second.
Wide SCSI. These drives have a wider cable and a 68-pin connection that supports
16-bit data transfers.
Fast SCSI. Uses an 8-bit bus but transfers data at 10 MB Per second.
Fast Wide SCSI. Doubles both the bus (16-bit) and the data transfer rate (20 MB
per second).
Ultra SCSI or Ultra Wide SCSI. Uses an 8-bit bus and transfers data at 20 MB per
second.
SCSI-3. Features a 16-bit bus and transfers data at 40 MB per second.
Ultra2 SCSI. Uses an 8-bit bus and transfer data at a rate of 40 MB per second.
Wide Ultra2 SCSI. Uses a 16-bit bus and supports data transfer rates of 80 MB
per second.
SCSI Hard Drives
Ultra320 SCSI Hard Drives
FIREWIRE (IEEE 1394)
The FireWire standard is becoming popular in portable hard drives because it can
be connected and removed without having to reboot the computer. It supports data
transfer rates of 50 MB per second, which means it is ideal for video, audio and
multimedia applications. FireWire requires a dedicated add-in card and the hard
drives in use require an external power source, but the interface can support up
to 63 devices simultaneously.
FireWire Hard Drives
USB 1.1 (UNIVERSAL SERIAL BUS)
Pretty much all computers today include USB ports on their motherboards. (On
older model, you can install an add-in card.) USB controllers can be used to
connect external hard drives, and can support as many as 127 devices
simultaneously either through USB port hubs or linked in a daisy chain fashion.
USB controllers do delivery power to devices connected to them, but many hard
drives still use an external power source. USB is limited by its data transfer
speed, the maximum rate being about at 1.5 MB per second.
USB Hard Drives
USB 2.0 (HI-SPEED USB)
A more recently introduced and far better connection standard that offers
backward compatibility and data transfer rates of up to 60 MB per second. USB
1.1 system can use a USB 2.0 device; it will need a USB 2.0 controller card to
achieve the higher transfer rates.
USB 2.0 Hard Drives
FIBRE CHANNEL
Fibre Cabling is mainly used for high-bandwidth network servers and
workstations, providing very fast data transfer rates (up to 106MB per second),
and connection at long cabled distances, although it is expensive and you need
to install a special interface card.
Spin rate
Data transfer rate is crucial to how well your computer performs for you. Apart
from the connection types above, the performance of your hard drive depends on
its spin rate, measured in RPM. Higher RPM generally means faster data transfer
rate. The lowest spin speed that is acceptable in computing today is 5400 RPM.
The common standard at present is 7200 RPM. But higher speeds are available in
SCSI drives, and it is one area of computer system technology that is constantly
being developed.
3600 RPM Hard Drives
4200 RPM Hard Drives
5400 RPM Hard Drives
7200 RPM Hard Drives
10000 RPM Hard Drives
15000 RPM Hard Drives
A larger capacity hard drive will not necessarily make your system function any
faster unless you are low on available disk space with your existing drive. But
a drive with Ultra ATA/100 or ATA/133 and a 7200 RPM spin rate will pretty much
guarantee an improved hard drive performance.
Other considerations
CACHE
Cache (pronounces 'cash') is additional temporary memory that acts as a buffer
between the system and the drive. Frequently accessed data is stored in the
cache for quick access. Cache sizes vary from 512 KB up to 16 MB on some SCSI
drives. The larger cache you have on your drive, the faster your drive will
transfer data. If you are working with large files, such as video, images and
audio files, it pays to have the largest cache you can get (8MB or more).
SEEK TIME
The data on your disk is stored in tracks and sectors and when you instruct your
hard drive controller to retrieve some data, it goes looking. The seek time is a
measure of how long it takes the hard drive to find a specific track on a disk.
Seek times can vary slightly from disk to disk and a drive with a faster seek
time will always perform better.
INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL TRANSFER RATES
These two rates tell how fast a drive actually reads the data and passes it
along to the system. Internal Transfer Rate refers to the time it takes for a
drives heads to read data from the platter and pass it to the drive's cache. The
External Transfer Rate (sometimes called the Transfer Rate or the Burst Transfer
Rate) is a measure of the time it takes to send the data from the cache all the
way to the computer's memory. Naturally faster transfer rates provide better
performance.
S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology)
This is a nice built-in feature in some hard drives that can help alert you to a
potential hardware problem. Your computer's BIOS must support this in order for
the SMART function it to work, however the drive itself will still work in a
system without it.
Buying and installing a hard drive has some technical aspects that you need to
take into account. Use Myshopping.com.au to compare different hard drive makes
and specifications to find the drive that will work best for your needs and
computer. You can compare prices and service offers from different vendors.
Author Bio
MyShopping.com.au helps you compare
hard
drives and buy online from top-rated online stores.
