Presentation on Hard disk

Storage
• What is storage?
• Holds data, instructions, and information
for future use
 Storage medium is physical material used for
storage

Next
 Storage Capacity
– Number of bytes (characters) a storage medium can hold

Kilobyte (KB) 1 thousand

Megabyte (MB) 1 million
Gigabyte (GB) 1 billion
Terabyte (TB) 1 trillion
Petabyte (PB) 1 quadrillion
Exabyte (EB) 1 quintillion
Zettabyte (ZB) 1 sextillion
Yottabyte (YB) 1 septillion
Next
Storage Devices
 Evaluating Storage
• Types of storage devices:
– Hard drive
– Floppy drive
– Zip disk drive
– CD/DVD
– Flash memory
• Nonvolatile storage
 Portable Storage
• Gives us the ability to move data
from one computer to another
• Types of portable storage
devices:
– Floppy disk:
• Capacity 1.44 MB
– Zip disk:
• Capacity 100 MB to 750 MB
– CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW:
• Capacity 700 MB to 9.4 GB
– Flash drive:
• Capacity 32 MB to 1 GB
– Flash memory Card:
• Up to 4 GB
 Storage Basics
• Storage Medium contains data
• A storage device records data and
retrieves data on a storage medium
– Data copied from storage device into RAM,
where it waits to be processed
– Processed data is held temporarily in RAM
before copied to storage medium
 Storage Device
• What is a storage device?

Reading Hardware that Writing

Process of transferring records Process of transferring
items from storage items from memory
media to memory data to storage media

Functions as source Creates output

of input

Next
 Access Time
– Time required to deliver item from memory to
processor

OR

– Time it takes storage device to locate item on

storage medium

Next
 hard disk mounted
in system unit

• What is a hard
disk?
– High-capacity storage

– Consists of several
inflexible, circular
platters that store
items electronically
– Components enclosed
in airtight, sealed case
for protection
Next
 Magnetic Disks
•What are tracks and
sectors?
Track
is narrow
recording band
that forms full
circle on disk

Sector
stores up
to
512 bytes
of data
Formatting prepares disk for use
Next
 Magnetic Disks
• What are characteristics of a hard disk?

Sample Hard Disk Characteristics

Advertised capacity 500 GB
Platters 4
Read/write heads 8
Cylinders 16,383
Bytes per second 512 actual
Sectors per track 63 disk
capacity
Sectors per drive 973,773,168
Revolutions per minute 7,200
Transfer rate 300 MB per second
Access time 8.5 ms Next
p. 359 Fig. 7-7
Hard Disk Drives: Long-Term Storage
The hard disk permanently stores all your important data. Some hard disks
can store more than 100 gigabytes of data.

RPM – Determines how fast your Hard Drive will access data.
Revolutions Per Minute.

Typical RPM Values:

Desktop Machine – 7,200 RPM

Laptop Machines – 5,000 RPM
Server Machines – 10,000 RPM
 Basic components of a hard
drive
• Disk platters
• Read/write heads
• Head actuator
• Spindle motor
• Logic board
• Cables & connectors
• Configuration items (such as jumpers &
switches)
 Spindle motor
• Motor that spins the platters
• Connected directly to the drive
 Logic Boards
• Mounted on the hard drive
• Contain electronics that control the drive’s
spindle & head actuator systems &
present the data to the controller
 Cables & Connectors
• Connectors for interfacing to the computer,
receiving poweretc
 Head disk Assembly
• Platters, spindle motor, heads, & head
actuator mechanisms usually contained in
this sealed chamber
 Hard Disk Platters
• 3 1/2 inch drives are the most popular for
desktop & some portables
• Max number of platters in a 3 1/2 inch
drive is 11
 Hard Disk Platters
• Traditionally made from aluminum alloy
• Desire for higher density has led to the
use of platters made of glass (glass
ceramic composite)
– Glass platters offer greater rigidity & more
stable thermally
 Hard Disk Platters
• No matter what type of platter is used, the
platters are covered with a thin layer of
magnetically retentive substance (called
the medium) on which magnetic
information is stored.
– Oxide media
– Thin-film media
 Oxide media
• Made of various compounds, oxide being
the primary active ingredient
• Put on the disk like syrup, coating the
entire disk
• Coating is approx 30 millionths of an inch
and is made smooth
• Platters appear to look brownish or amber
 Oxide media
• Very sensitive to head-crash during
movement of operation
• Very few drives use this technology
anymore
 Thin-film media
• Thinner, harder & more perfectly formed
than oxide media
• Looks silver like the surface of a mirror .
 Magnetic Disk
• Magnetic storage stores data by
magnetizing microscopic particles on the
disk or tape surface

Durability?
 Read/Write Heads

• A hard disk has one read/write head for

each side of the platter
• The heads are connected on a single
movement mechanism
• They move in same manner and direction.
 Read/Write Heads
• Each head is on an actuator arm that is
spring-loaded to force the head into
contact with a platter
– The heads float only a very slight distance
above the platter
• When the drive is at rest, the heads are
forced into direct contact with the platters
by spring tension
 Read/Write Heads
• Four types of read/write head designs:
– Ferrite
– Metal-In-Cap
– Thin-film
– Magneto-resistive
 How a Hard Disk Works
• Composed of several
coated platters stacked
on a spindle
Read/write
• Data saved to the disk: Platters head
pattern of magnetized spots
– Spots = 1
– Spaces = 0
• Between platters are
read/write heads that read
and write magnetized data
• Spots are translated
into data Access arms
 The Hard Drive
Electronic board
• The electronics
• Opening a hard disk Integrated circuit
ruins it. controls the read and
write mechanism and
the motor that spins the
platters.
• Turns bytes into
magnetic domains and
binary information
accordingly
• May detach from the
rest of the drive
 The Hard Disk Drive
• Storage capacity up to 500
GB and more.
• Access time is measured in
milliseconds
• Data transfer rate is
measured in megabits or
megabytes per second
• Spindle speed is measured
in revolutions per minute
(rpm)
Questions