By : Craig Messenger

What do you know about your hard drive? A hard drive stores all

the information on your computer. It has a recording

device called a magnetic medium that records all the information you put on it. It’s kind of like a

cassette tape except a tape records onto a plastic strip, and a

hard drive records onto an aluminum or glass disk.

A hard disk stores info different from a cassette

tape. A tape has a read/write head that

actually touches the tape to record. The hard disk has a read/write head that flies over the disk at 170m.p.h. that reports all info to the

hard drive.

An Actual Hard Drive• The arm in the

picture holds the read/write head. The arm is EXTREMELY fast and lightweight. On most hard drives, it can go from the edge to the hub 50 times per second!!!

WhErE DoeS It sToRe dAtA?

• Memory is stored on sectors and tracks. The sectors are the pizza slice shaped parts, which are often stored together in clusters, and the tracks are the little curved segments.

Thank you and

WWW.HOWSTUFFWORKS.COM/HARD-DISK.HTM

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