How does a HDD (Hard drive disk) work?

A HDD is a mechanical form of storage, using electromagnetism to store and write data.
Mechanical drives are very prone to data lose and breaking when moved around, due to their mechanical nature.
They consist of two main components, an actuator (Consisting of an "Arm" that does the reading and writing), and a platter on which the data is stored.
Data is arranged in concentric (Non spiral) tracks around the platter and are further divided up into segments which run from the center of the pllatter to the outside (Think slices of pizza).
When reading or writing, the arm moves out to the correct segment and then the platter spins so that the arm can get to the correct segment. At this point the arm can either receive the bits of data on the HDD or send out electric signals to re-write the bits on the disk.

HB

Related Computing A Level answers

All answers ▸

One member of a chess club sends a text file saved in Unicode. What meant by the term "Unicode" and why might this be necessary?


A binary, 8-bit floating point number 0111 0010 is said to have a 4-bit mantissa and a 4-bit exponent. What is meant by the terms 'mantissa' and 'exponent'? What is the value of this 8-bit binary floating point number?


What are the different development methodologies and what are their advantages and disadvantages?


How does the Stack data type work?