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Now with technological advancement, hard drives are getting smaller and the storage capacity has increased tremendously allowing them to store large gigabytes of data. This has made them an inevitable part of computers and they have found their usage in numerous other devices including mobile phones, audio players, digital cameras etc.
Hard Drive Set Up
In certain ways, a hard disk drive or hard drive as it is usually called, functions similar to a human brain. Just like the way your brain stores important events, a hard drive saves important information as instructed to it by a user and can be retrieved whenever required.
A hard drive is a stack of circular, non-magnetic material called platters. Data is stored on the platter in concentric bands by magnetisation. In order to produce this magnetisation, the platters are usually coated with a layer of magnetic material. Above each platter there is a read-write head. The hard drive and the read-write head are held in place by a central common arm.
Whenever any data has to be written on the hard drive, the platter starts rotating at a high speed. The read-write head magnetises the surface of the platter and the information is encoded on the platter in magnetic form. When the data has to be retrieved, the read-write head can retrieve the magnetised message from the platter and the data is supplied to the user after decoding the message.
Hard Drive Failure and Data Recovery
Operating System acts as an interface between a user and a computer helping them communicate. All the important information on a computer including the operating system is stored on the hard drive. Hence the loss of information on the hard drive could have serious implications.
Data loss on a hard drive can be a result of physical damage to the hard drive or deletion of important files in the operating system. Some of the common physical and logical threats that could lead to data loss on the hard drive are as follows:
Physical Damage:
1. Dropping your computer or frequent jerks to your computer during travel might result in hard drive failure. It can damage various parts in a hard drive such as read-write head, platter, etc.
2. Overheating of the hard drive can damage the hard drive's circuit board.
3. With extended usage, the magnetic coating on the platter might go away, making it difficult for the read-write head to write or retrieve information from the hard drive.
Logical Damage:
1.In the Internet era, virus is a major cause of concern and could wipe out all the important data on the computer. It also affects other computers on the network and crashes them.
2. Sometimes, a person might inadvertently delete important files in the registry causing data loss.
Since hard drive failure can result even from human errors, there is no assurance when you might face the problem. So even if you are purchasing the best hard drive in the market, you still stand a chance of hard drive failure. Hence, before you lose your important data at work that could cause tremendous loss to your business, make sure you back up all the data at regular intervals.
Hard Drive Manufacturing
There are two main types of hard drives - ATA and SATA.
Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA) is also referred to as IDE, ATAPI, PATA (Parallel ATA), etc. It is connected to the computer through 16-bit parallel interface and transfers two bytes of data at a time. It is constantly being upgraded over the past twenty years.
Serial ATA (SATA) is a comparatively newer technology which uses 1-bit serial interface. It is better than ATA in performance and consumes lesser power. However, owing to these advantages, it is costlier than their ATA counterparts.
The leading hard drive manufacturers are Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate, Fujitsu, Western Digital, Maxtor, etc. These companies make heavy investments in R&D and are constantly improving their products in terms of compactness and better quality.
Hard Drives - Protect Them
As you are aware that your hard drives contain most of your important data, it is important that you prevent any damage to them than opting for data recovery. As the adage goes, prevention is better than cure.