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What Is A "Hard
Drive"?
A "Hard Drive" is the term
used for the box inside your computer that is used to store information. All the
programs and applications that you use on your computer are stored within the Hard Drive.
Your computer couldn't run without a hard drive, because it wouldn't remember
anything. (And by the way, I truthfully don't have a clue why it's is
called a "hard drive".)
Hard Drive sizes are measured in bytes, but often the prefix
"giga", meaning billion, is added. So a 8 gigabyte hard drive can hold 8
billion bytes worth of data. For most people, a hard drive that can hold 8 to 16
gigabytes of data is enough.
Think of a hard drive as a bunch of CD's put on top of each other in a
box. Each of the CD's is still independent of the others. The stack of CD's
spin in the box and a little gadget reads the little indentations in each of the CD's.
That same gadget can also write little indentations onto those CD's.
If you want to boost the speed of your computer, one way to do it is to
get a faster hard drive. The faster those CD's spin, the faster your computer can
access the data on those CD's. So a 7500 Rpm (revolutions per minute) hard drive
would be faster than a 5500 Rpm hard drive.
Computers think in binary code (a system comprised of 1's and 0's,
"yes" or "no"), so if there is an indentation in a certain spot of the
hard drive, the computer calls it a "1", and if there isn't, the computer calls
it a "0". When the computers gets a pattern of these 1's and 0's, it can
make an accurate representation of the data on the computer screen.
Hard drives usually last longer than the computer actually
does. They can last a very long time without any problems. But sometimes they
do have trouble (like a damaged or defective part), and if this happens, you usually don't
have much choice other than buying a new hard drive. Hard drives can be anywhere
from $150 to $500 depending on the size and the speed.
J. Brunelle
E-Mail Me
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