Anatomy of a Hard Drive

 
In this lab you will dissect a HD and diagram and label the internal components.
  1. Working in groups of 2-3 obtain a HD from your instructor.
    STOP! Do NOT open the HD yet. Look carefully at the labels on the outside of the drive. Draw a diagram of the connections on the hard drive. The cable that transfers data connects to the IDE ( Integrated DriveElectronics) controller on the motherboard. The other connector is for power. Draw a quick sketch of the two connectors and label each.

  2. Flip the HD over and look at the bottom of the drive. Describe what the bottom of the HD looks like.

  3. IDE drives have the HD controller circuitry built into the HD this is why you can simply plug the HD directly onto the mother board

  4. Carefully open the HD but do NOT touch anything inside the drive. Draw a detailed sketch of the insides of the drive. Label the following parts. If you need help with the labels do a google image search for hard drive parts.
    Platter, Spindle, Read/Write Head, Actuator Motor - how data is stored on the HD
  5. Use the following web site, www.pcguide.com, to describe how the platter on a HD is organized.

Comparing Parallel ATA with Serial ATA

  1. Obtain a SATA drive and cable and a PATA cable. Compare the two drives and the two cables.

  2. What are the advatages of SATA over PATA?

How Hard Drives Store Data

Go to the following web site to answer the next questions.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/How-Perpendicular-Recording-Works/

  1. In what form is data stored on a hard drive?

  2. How is perpendicular recording different from longitudinal recording?

  3. What are the advantages of perpendicular recording?

  4. Watch the following animation - Hitachi - Get Perpendicular. What happens if the magnetic fields get too close to each other and what is the result?

 

Comparing HDD with SSD

  1. What are the advantages of an SSD to an HDD?

  2. What is non-volatile memory? What would be an example of volatile memory?

  3. How old is HDD technology?

  4. If SSD technology is so great why might I still buy a HDD?