Question

What is a traditional Hard Disk Drive (HDD) composed?

Answer 1

A hard disk drive, or hard disk, etc is an electromechanical data storage device. HDD uses magnetic storage to store and retrieve data. HDD is considered as the secondary storage of the Computer and has large storage capacity.

HDD consists of a thin layer of ferromagnetic material on both sides of the disks. HDD stores and retrieves data by magnetizing this thin layer. Sequential changes in the magnetic film represent the binary data(0s and 1s).

The data is read through the disk by these changes in the magnetic material.

Physical Structure of HDD:-

A modern hard disk contains Spindle, Platters, Read-Write Head.

1. Spindle:- A spindle is a rotating axis of the hard disks, that holds a platter. Platter consists of disks. Towards the end of the spindle, there is a Read-Write head that is used to read and write data to these disks. The speed of the rotation of the spindle in turn determines the RPM of the hard disk. The most common RPM of the hard disk is 1200, 3600, 5400 and 7200.

2. Platter:- Data is read and write from a Platter. Platter consists of a set of magnetized disks, into which data is stored and retrieved. Each disk consists of tracks and sectors. The read-write head of the spindle is placed over the desired disks, track, and sector to read or to store data. Storage capacity of the hard disk is defined by the storage capacity of the platter.

3. Read-Write Head:- It is placed at the end of the spindle. Read-Write heads are typically made up of thin magnetic blades and are responsible for writing and reading data from the platter. In modern disk drives, there are separate read-write heads for each disk and are actually connected together through an actuator arm. These heads are a small part of the HDD which move over the platter.

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