Hard disks types, a must know information before you buy your new laptop.


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While buying a laptop or a new computer, most of us are interested only in the storage area without paying attention to the type or the storage of the hard disk. There are 3 different types of Storage devices:

external hard disks

Hard HDD:

Using oscillating magnetic disks termed “platters”, the regular hard drive stores information and data by moving an arm across the platter just as an antique record player to interpret and access information.

It is the most widespread type of Hard disks in use. Majority of laptops and computers has a HDD hard disk mounted on them. This is due to its cheap price and its availability in huge volumes to store up to 4 terabytes for computers and 1 terabyte for laptops, making it suitable for the traditional users of computers and laptops. There are 2 famous brands of hard disks “western Digital” and “Seagate” there are also other companies that produce hard disks but not as main aim like Toshiba, Samsung, and Hitachi. Although its quality is better than the above, but it isn’t available much and it is usually higher in price.

There are 3 main types of HDD Hard disks: SATA, IDE and SCSI.

At first you should know that the main factor that determines the best hard drive, which can be used, is the motherboard installed on your desktop computer or laptop as there are ports on your motherboard which makes it easier for you to choose the needed Drive.

Old motherboards are usually available in IDE ports but nowadays current motherboards are available in SATA and IDE ports. Laptop motherboards are provided in IDE and SATA.

IDE Hard Disks

Also known as PATA, IDE is old and no longer used in the new devices, but spare parts are still sold in the markets. Type gives a maximum speed of up to 133 Mbps and requires a large cable interconnection to connect it to the motherboard.

Hard disk SCSI

This type is not used at home computers, but it is often used in servers.

Features of hard disks:

If you are using the “IDE” hard disk then you won’t find any features or specifications and also sizes, only basic specifications. But if you are using SATA hard disks then you have a variety of specifications that allows you to choose the best suitable for you.

Desktop Computer Hard disks are referred to as 3.5 inch disk, whereas laptop hard disks are referred to 2.5 inch disks.

Sizes:

Size depends entirely on your needs. It varies if you want to store movies and song or videos with large sizes or your storage is much lesser than that?

For desktops you find Starting from 80 Gigabytes to 1 terabyte.

For laptops you can find starting from 80 Gigabytes to 500 Gigabytes

Also note and keep in mind this shortage, when you buy your hard disk you won’t get the whole volume that is given on the Hard disk for e.g. if you buy a 80 Gigabyte hard disk then your storage volume will be 74 gigabytes. This is because the calculations of size of hard disks vary between the producing companies and operating systems.

SSD (Solid State Drive):

This kind of drives are used more with atypical laptops and ultra books devices which has special characteristics being slender and weighs lesser than the ordinary ones such as  Lenovo yoga3 pro and Macbook air. It is considered more expensive that HDD disks and it is not available in large volumes of storage like the HDD. The largest available storage is 1 terabyte and for laptops 512 gigabyte or even less. On the other hand SSD disks runs faster than HDD disks.

SSHD Disks:

This is known as Solid Hybrid drives and is a combination of both traditional HDD and SSD disks. It has the small area of storage varies between 4 – 8 GB which are primarily used in booting or running laptops and caching and these are the properties of the SSD disks. While there is another part used for storage of files and this comes in volumes more than 500 GB which is considered the main feature of HDD disks.

SSHD integrates the pros of the HDD and SSD Disks; it is cheaper than SSD drives but more expensive than the Hard HDD.

Unless you know the difference between all types of Hard disks it will sure be difficult for you to use the best. Now that you know I think it’s easier. By the way, is your Laptop a HDD driver?  You can easily add A SSD driver and experience the difference and speed.