Wipe Hard Disk

How Do Hard Disks Work In A Computer?

The location where a computer stores all its programs and data is known as hard disk drive. The hard disks are able to retain the data even when the computers are turned off. Hence, everybody is able to see everything in place, when they turn on the computer next time. With the advanced and complex technology that a computer uses nowadays, it made the hard drive work more and in different ways. It is very important to know the role of hard disk drive in making the computer runs. We need to know how a hard drive is able to store as well as retrieve data.

Facts about Hard Drive

2 to 5 magnetic disks measuring around 2.5 inches in diameter is the main component of hard disk drive. It also has spindles, motor, controllers, heads and an actuator. All the components are made up of different kinds of metals.

The most important function of hard disks is to store data, which can be used later. Whatever, you do on the computer starting from installing & running a software, saving Excel spreadsheets & Word documents to sending & receiving emails, everything require data or information from the hard drive. You must know the functions of the components of hard disk drive. These are as follows:

* The magnetic platters hold the stored data.

* The heads, controller and actuator arm work all together to store as well as retrieve data.

*The actuator and heads receive all the instructions from controller whenever any reading or writing is done on the magnetic platters.

How The Hard Drive Works

The function of hard disks can be described briefly with an example of how things work when the computers request for data. Whenever, the computer needs any data it would send message to the controller. The controller would go ahead to check the registry in order to find out the location of the data. Once it finds the data, it would involve the appropriate heads to the location where they need to be at that time. The controller would not make use of the actuator arm and read the data from the magnetic platters, which are attached to the heads.

Whenever data is read or stored, the motor in the hard disk would speed up. The basic functionality of the motor is to make the spindle work, which spins the magnetic platters at the required speed. After that, the actuator starts to read data when the magnetic platters reach their highest operational speed. The functionality of hard disks can be compared with the old record player, where the needle can be said the actuator and the record to be magnetic disk.

After the data is read, it is sent to the controller card’s buffer as per the functionality. The buffer has a reliable and faster source of memory, hence known to have solid-state memory. The performance of buffer depends on the size of the buffer, which is generally 2 to 8 MB of space. The function of the buffer is to send the data through a cable to the motherboard. It is now the function of the motherboard to process and handle the data appropriately so that it is delivered to the right place i.e. to the place from where the command came.