Theoperating system, software titles, and most otherfilesare stored on the hard disk drive.
While this isn’t a technically correct term to use, it is still prevalent.
Regardless of what it’s called, the primary hard drive typically contains theroot folderof the operating system used.
The sides of the hard drive have pre-drilled, threaded holes for easy mounting in the 3.5-inch drive bay.
Mounting is also possible in a smaller 2.5-inch drive and larger 5.25-inch drive bay with an adapter.
The hard drive is mounted, so the end with the connections faces inside the computer.
Laptops often use a 2.5-inch hard drive or SSD.
The back end of the hard drivecontains a port for a cable that connects to themotherboard.
Also here is a connection for power from thepower supply.
These parameters vary from drive to drive, so check with your hard drive manufacturer for details.
Some computers have ahard drive activity lightto indicate when the HDD is being used.
Inside a traditional hard drive aresectorslocated on tracks, stored on rotating platters.
These platters have magnetic heads that move with an actuator arm to read and write data to the drive.
Flash drives are sometimes referred to assolid-state drivesand connect to the computer throughUSB.
There are also hybrids calledSSHDs.
They usually interface with the computer over USB, but some useFireWireoreSATA.
An external enclosure is a housing for an internal hard drive.
They, too, use USB, FireWire, and so forth.
Choosing a hard drive based on how much storage it can retain is really up to opinion and circumstance.
The same is valid for computer hard drives.
You need toformat the driveorpartition the driveinto sections before you might install an operating system or store files.
Otherwise, adisk partition toolis a common way to manipulate the drive in this way.
When you’re dealing with afragmentedhard drive,free defrag toolsare available that can help reduce the fragmentation.
Defragging a hard drive can sometimes make your setup run faster.
You should not (and don’t need to) defragment a solid-state drive.
you might usually accomplish this with adata destruction program.
On the opposite end, you could protect your hard drive data with adisk encryption program.
Only after you enter a specific password will the data be decrypted and readable/usable.
It’s common to run into a problem with the unit eventually.
Windows includes a built-in tool calledchkdskthat helps identify and maybe even correct various hard drive errors.
You canrun the graphical version of this toolin most versions of Windows.
Lots offree programs can test a hard drivefor issues that might ultimately lead to you needing toreplace the drive.
Some of them can also measure performance, like theseek time.
Instead, SSDs work like flash drives, which also don’t have any moving components.
Solid state drives are very common today because of their reliability and speed compared to hard disk drives.
Dynamic disk hard drives manage data differently than traditional drives.
