Your computer is no good if it can’t remember anything. For that, you will need a hard drive. If you haven’t purchased one before, it can all seem a little confusing at first. This guide will help you get started with working out what hard drive you need.
What is the Hard Drive For?
The hard drive is your computer’s primary storage device. You can think of it as being like your computer’s long-term memory. Anything that is stored on the hard drive will be kept there indefinitely unless the user acts to remove it or the drive is physically damaged. This isn’t just where your personal files are stored either. The code that makes your operating system and your installed software work is also stored on the hard drive.
Hard drives have a limited amount of space. Hard drives today will have storage capacity given in gigabytes (GB) or terabytes (TB). Terabytes are bigger than gigabytes, 1 TB = 1024 GB. The amount of storage you need will depend on what you use your computer for. Regardless of anything else, you will have to give over some of your storage space to the operating system and other unavoidable uses.
Now that cloud technologies, which allow you to store more of your data online, are becoming ubiquitous, as are high-speed internet connections and cellular data allowances, hard drive space isn’t as important as it used to be. Users no longer have to store their files locally in order to be able to access them on demand.
Types of Hard Drives
Hard drives come in a variety of different forms, but you will only have to worry about a small number of them. There are both internal and external hard drives. Internal hard drives live inside your computer and will usually act as the primary storage device for your system. External hard drives, on the other hand, plug into your computer’s USB port. This type of storage is favored where portability is a consideration.
HDD stands for a hard disk drive; these are the most common type of hard drive. These hard drives comprise of physical discs and are read by moving components. In an HDD, data is stored magnetically and read by a needle in a similar fashion to a record on a record player.
HDDs are the most affordable hard drive type; they offer the most amount of storage for the cheapest price. They are not as fast ass the newer SSDs, however, they are by no means slow.
SSD stands for solid state drive. These are hard drives that, rather than making use of mechanical parts like HDDs, work like USB thumb drives inside. This makes them much faster, but also expensive to produce. You can find smaller SSDs relatively cheap. In fact, your smartphone probably has a 32 – 64 GB SSD inside.
Choosing a Hard Drive
If you are in the market for a hard drive but aren’t sure where to start looking, check out Hdd Mag for reviews and suggestions.
Once you have a new hard drive, you won’t have to worry about storage for a while. It might all seem a bit daunting at first, but after a little research, you should be able to find the right hard drive for you.
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