Hard Disk Drives[]
By: Maya Singh[]
The hard drive disk or HDD, has come a long way since it's invention over sixty years ago. Now, although the HDD market is in a steady decline due to users switching to SSD cards or Solid State Drives, HDD technology continues to advance and progress to levels once thought impossible. The first hard drive disk-based computer was created in 1956, known as the Random Access Method of Accounting and Control (RAMAC), it was massive and required an entire room to operate. Even with all that space, users only ended up with about 5MB of storage. As time went on, HDD's became smaller as well as increasingly more reliable. Not only can some store up to 3.5 terabytes, but they have now been condensed to the only about 2.5 inches, (the 2.5 inch model is the kind found in most laptops).
A hard disk drive is essentially a secondary storage device that permanently stores, as well as retrieves, data from the computer. The HDD is not to be confused with Random Access Memory or RAM. Rather than temporarily storing data and information only while it is being worked on or accessed such as the RAM does, the HDD stores information permanently to ones computer regardless of internet connection or other such factors.
Internal hard disk drive's are generally located in what is known as a drive bay. The drive bay is an open space connected to ones computer in which certain add-on's can be applied (CD's, floppy drive etc.) The drive bay is connected to the motherboard which allows for the necessary transfer of information from the computer to the HDD itself. While the location of the HDD varies and depends on the specific model of the computer, it is sometimes found attached to an interface within the computer itself.
Overall, while the Solid State Drive may be taking over and the HDD industry gradually declining, hard disk drives have provided many computer users with adequate amounts of storage and much more. Also, they have served as a stepping stone in the grand scheme of modern day technology and they played an important role in the evolution of computers and memory storage.
Sources:
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/history-hard-drives/