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Hard Disk Drives

Hard Disk drive or simply the hard drive is an important component of your computer that stores your data. They are magnetic data storage media and store the data on rotating magnetic disks. Earlier they had detachable data storage media but, these days they come inbuilt in most computers. Apart from the computers, they are even used in audio players, game consoles, PDAs etc. these days.

Author: James Walsh

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How Hard Drives Work

The magnetic disk that stores the data in a hard drive is made up of materials containing ceramic and aluminium and a layer of magnetic material is present on top of it. Such a combination of materials is used to ensure that low amount of heat is produced. There may be a number of disks within a particular hard drive. They are usually stacked on top of one another to form a cylinder. A spindle with a motor attached to it at its lower end helps in rotating the disks supporting them. The storage capacity of one such disk can range in order of few Giga Bytes.

A read/write head is present within the hard drive and it moves over the disks in a manner similar to the head of early audio players that played records. The disk is divided into a number of small units. Each of them can store a byte of data. These units have a specific address that is used to access the data that is stored within them. Usually data belonging to a particular file is stored in adjacent sectors so that it can be accessed at a faster rate. This device is sealed within an airtight enclosure that prevents it from being contaminated by dust particles or other contaminants.

Hard Drive Capacity

The hard drives have shown a large amount of technological development in the past few years. This has led to an exponential increase in their storage capacities. Recently, hard drives have been launched with a capacity if 1 TB this has been achieved by making disks of a higher data storage density. The time required to access data in such disks is high as there has not been a sufficient increase in the speed of rotation of the disks to match the increase in capacity. Other than these, there are hard drives with a wide range of capacities.

How to Take Care of Hard Drives and What Can Possibly Go Wrong

The main protection that you need for your hard drive is from viruses. They may cause a lot of damage to the data stored on your hard drive but, do not cause any damage to the hard drive itself. It will continue to function properly, once the virus has been deleted. Your computer can be protected from viruses by making use of quality anti-virus software and updating it regularly.

The possible damage to the hard drive is in the form of over heating due to the hard drive usage for a long period of time. The computers these days are equipped with a cooling system in the form of fans. But, this may prove to be insufficient and the heat generated may cause some parts of the computer to melt. Loss of data stored on the hard drive is also possible and in such cases, recovery of data is almost impossible. Hence, it is necessary to check that the cooling system is functioning efficiently. Also, it is preferable not to use your computer for excessively long durations of time.
Also, care should be taken to keep your CPU unit clean, as any dust entering your hard drive is likely to cause damage to the read/write head and thus leading to loss of data.

What to Do if Your Hard Drive Crashes

The hard drive may crash due to a variety of reasons. In some of the cases recovery of data is possible and in some others, it is not. Hence, it is always beneficial to backup all your important data to avoid its loss. Recovery of the data may be attempted by making use of the data recovery software available online. This may not always prove to be useful and if the software is of a bad quality, it may even cause permanent loss of your data. Another solution is making use of data recovery services provided by many companies. This usually proves to be a safer solution but it may also be expensive.

Always remember that hard drives are important components of your computer and should be cared for adequately to avoid emotional and financial hassles resulting from data loss.

About Author

James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. For more information on computer crime and Computer Forensics see http://www.fieldsassociates.co.uk

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