What is a hard disk drive?

Chances are, while purchasing a laptop or desktop, you’d have always been asked to make is that between a Hard Disk Drive (HDD) or Solid State Drive (SDD). Well, until a few years ago, one didn’t have much of a choice, as only the former was available for the most part. Ever wondered what it is, though? Read on.

What are HDDs and how do they work?

Also known as an HDD, they are a type of storage device which can store and retrieve digital data. They are an electro-mechanical device, one which use magnetic storage with rigid, rapidly rotating platters coated with magnetic material. HDDs are also known simply as hard drives or fixed disks. The HDD was first introduced back in 1956 by IBM (International Business Machines Corporation).  

ALSO READ: What is computer memory?

Hard drives, in essence, act as a secondary storage for any given system. That is to say, they are not directly accessible by the CPU. The computer usually uses input/output channels to access secondary storage and transfer the desired data to primary storage. Secondary storage is non-volatile. Therefore, it retains data even when its power is shut off. HDDs are typically used to store operating systems, program applications, and user data such as documents, photos, videos, and much more.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of an HDD?

One of the biggest advantages of HDDs, is that they have the ability to store larger amounts of data and are also cheaper when compared to SSDs. On the flip side though, they are comparitiviely slower, in terms of read and write speeds, as compared to SSDs.