Understanding our Hard Drive

                                                                                         

One single hard drive store can store millions & millions of megabytes of data. In fact today’s computer hard drive is capable of storing Terabytes of data. Nature of hard drive has changed astronomically what we used in beginning. Changes have occurred in the size of the hard, nature, capacity and weight. Have we ever though how these hard drive works. We have never given the importance of its working just we know to store our valuable data and retrieving it when needed. So let’s understand the basic component of the hard drive.

The hard drive which we use consists of seven basic elements, the enclosure, spindle, platter, motor, actuator arm, and interface and logic board. Enclosure is nothing but a simple case of the hard drive which holds the other five components inside it. Logic board is attached on the back side of the hard drive.

Logic Board

As we have said logic board is attached to the underside of the hard drive is an important piece which handles important elements. Logic board can be termed as a brain of the hard dive as it gives the instruction manual for computer attempting to access the hard drive. It give the computer an idea how big size of the hard dive, what cables are connected to the hard drive & how to access the drive in different operating system. If the logic board goes dead then our computer will never be able to detect our hard drive.

Spindle Motor

Now if we look into enclosure of the hard drive then the most basic thing is spindle motor. Spindle motor is one which rotates the platters or the disk where our data is stored. The spindle motor is connected to the spindle. The spindle moves at a speed of about 150 rotations in one second. And the distance between the spindle and platter is about 1 micro millimeter. Even if any dust particles comes in between them then spindle gets damaged.

Hard drive Platters

Platter is thin disk of glass or aluminum coated with an ultra-thin layer of a cobalt alloy, which is naturally magnetic. Data is written on the sector which outward from spindle called track. Sectors are organized into concentric ring. Collection of sector form clusters which are grouped together by the file system. Without clustering disk performance would be very slow due to the file system's inability to access data quickly.

These entire components are vital and any damaged to these parts can result in loss of our valuable data. So it is advisable to always monitor the hard drive such as Temperature, Head Flying Height, and Spin-Up Time etc. If there any clicking or unwinding sound is heard then immediately stop using the drive and to consult data recovery experts before we loose any data.

About the author:
Andrew Watson a student of Mass Communication doing research on data recovery software. He is also a freelancer for http://www.stellarinfo.com

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