How to choose a Hard Drive Disk (HDD)

With the advent of computer technology, the possibilities of disseminating information have become virtually limitless and more accessible. Every year the need to store various kinds of data increases, which in turn requires a certain amount of free disk space. In this regard, the manufacturing companies are upgrading the "custodians of information" HDD (Hard Drive Disk). To purchase them should be treated with great care, because it is important not only the total amount of disk space of the device, but also the speed of data exchange, and therefore reliability.

Today in the market HDD differ in the size, speed of writing and reading, and other characteristics. Since these devices communicate with the computer, they can affect the speed of the operating system and various applications. And if such a device is slow, even a powerful computer will not reveal its full potential. Therefore, the choice of such devices should be approached carefully, which is to understand the characteristics of the devices.

Main parameters of the Hard Drive Disk

HDD is recommended primarily for storing large amounts of information. That to choose the capacity of the hard drive that is really needed, you should decide for yourself, what data will be stored on the computer. If the user is not going to fill the memory with movies, music and other data for which you want to reserve more space on the disk than for ordinary documents, then it makes no sense to buy an HDD with a large amount of memory.

For fast speed data processing, it is necessary to pay attention to the spindle speed. The higher the value, the faster the data processing. For laptops are available HDD with the following parameters: 4200, 5400, 7200/rpm. Personal computers are equipped with hard drives, the performance of which is 5400, 5900, 7200, 10000/rpm. for server computers 10000 and 15,000/rpm. Of course, it is necessary to choose hard drives with the highest performance, but the higher the speed the higher the price, heat and noise during operation of the disk. Speed data of spindles, you can find in the description of the device in the online store, on the package or on the label device (see photo).

Some hard drives are quite noisy, despite the low spindle speed, and some users are not satisfied. Therefore, if this indicator is important for you, you should also pay attention to it when buying. The noise level is measured in decibels (DB).

The next parameter that allows you to determine the speed of the hard disk buffer-memory. It's an intermediate memory. As a rule, it can be from 8 to 64 MB. As already, it is clear, the higher this parameter, the better.

Types of Hard Drive Disk connection Interfaces

Once you have decided on the type and technical characteristics of the disks, you need to pay attention to an equally important parameter the type of interface. The interface connects the disk to the computer. Different types of interface have their own speed of data exchange with the computer. There are several types of them.

ATA, or also referred to as the IDE, is an obsolete option that has been replaced by the SATA interface. In this period of time, this species has received a special distribution and has undergone changes. There are three types of SATA interface, each of which differs from each other in the speed of data exchange with the computer. SATA-I has a bandwidth of 150 MB/s and 300MB/s and 600MB/s version II and III, respectively. Similarly, to SATA, there is an eSATA interface that is only used to connect external HDDs. External hard drives can also be connected via USB. Of course, for fast data exchange external HDD cost to choose the latest version of this interface USB 3.0. Moreover, USB 3.0 allows not only to transfer data, but also to power it immediately.

Note, in the case of SATA, eSATA and USB interface, you should select the hard drive with the latest version of these connection interfaces. Since the new versions of interfaces are compatible with the previous ones and in this case the hard drive will simply work at the speed of the previous version of the interface.

For server stations previously used SCSI interface, it has become an analogue of the SAS interface, which has a higher speed.

Final recommendations for choosing a Hard Drive Disk

• Manufacturing of hard drives engaged in a fairly large number of companies. When choosing a device, an important role is played by which company released it. Before buying, despite the positive technical characteristics, it is necessary to read the reviews on the selected model. For example, the most popular are manufacturers such as Seagate, Western Digital, Samsung, but some of their models have negative customer reviews.

• Of course, everyone decides on what criteria to choose a hard drive: whether it's price or quality. But, always remember that the safety of information depends entirely on the reliability of the purchased drive. As with any technique, hard drives wear out over time, so it is undesirable to buy HDD, previously used.