HDD - Hard Disk Drive
Nearly every desktop and laptop computer produced today uses some form of storage to hold crucial data. Hard Disk Drives, more know as Hard Drive or HDD, dont always attract the same attention various other components recieve, though they have a significant role in PC's and gaming computers. Everything from your operating system to gaming oriented applications are stored here. Majority of computers produced today feature atleast one HDD and more exclusively a SSD, but more difficult PC setups use multpile HDD's running simotaniously. In regards to this information, this article features information concerning secondary storage devices and their impact in a gaming computer setup.
Storage CapacityThe key specification about a storage device is the amount of storage space that it offers. A common purchase strategy is to purchase more storage space than needed, for future benefit. Most common hard drive capacitys range between 500 Gb/s - 2 Tb/s amoung their specific uses. There are other factors in making a purchase discussed below. Though storage capacity is pivotal to consider, another option would be to add more than one hard disk drive to your system for specific setups between drive operation.
Hard Drive Performance
There are two performance factors that apply to selection of storage device and they both have crucial activities in hard drive function. Both of these technical specifications are known as data rate and seek time.
Data Rate
How fast a computer can access information depends on how fast its hard drive operates at. From a basic outlook, the "revolutions per minute," or "data rate," is a measure of how fast a hard drive spins in order to access data. A typical hard drive spins at a rate of 7,200 RPM which is average for majority of gaming PCs. More advanced HDD will have more effective rates up 15,000 RPM, which I recommend for more advanced gaming PCs. This component produces notable results for gaming computer, allowing the computer to work with more space and in faster time. Also, the more money you invest into the piece of hardware, the better the responsiveness you will get. For optimum performace, look into a more advance storage device such as Soild State Drives or SSD's.
Seek Time
Seek time is another interesting hard drive performance factor that measures how fast the read/write head physically moves to the correct sector of the hard drive. The time it takes this head to move results in data being transferred accordingly. Its wise to be aware of this specification because many newer hard disk drives have more efficent seek times compared to the past. Also, more advanced storage devices such as Solid State Drive's do not use a seek time, lacking the moving parts a traditional hard drive would use, for better performance.
Having been many storage devices used throughout the years, precision has lead to hard drives being integrated into the FDD or Floppy Disk Drive mount space. The desire to use HDD's this way evolved into a method of designing drives into this form factor. The current hard drive demensions that dominate the market are 2.5 in and 3.5 inch drives. For value and performance, consider a 7,200 RPM rated hard disk drive, because its practical use for gaming computer work perfect for most people.
Drive Interface
The most notable interfaces among todays modern hard drives include the ATA, IDE or EIDE, and SATA, SCSI, and SAS formats. The two formats we will focus on will be SATA and SCSI drives and their importance.
SATA or Serial Attachment Packet Interface
The SATA format is the most common interface among storage drives and optical drives. The reason this is, is because it offers many advantages compared to the PATA format used on previous drives. One visable comparison between the PATA and SATA drives are the cable adapters. Consider this format in your purchase along with select SCSI drives, though SATA drives are still faster than SCSI drives.
SCSI Interface
SCSI or Small Computer System Interface is a variation of advanced computer interconnect related to HDD's. Its uses a more advanced bus compared to the simliar SATA bus. This interface format can be used in custom built computers and can be used in a disk array, which is a system that contains multiple drives, commonly configured in gaming systems. Even though this interface has fast data rates, the fact a SATA drive can perform just as well makes the SCSI interface a suitable candadite for a hard drive interface, but suffers from high production cost, making it generally unpopular. Overall, you should consider this for a gaming system, but we recommend SATA becuase you can get a faster drive at a lower cost.
As with every other component, they all require power consumption to work properly. In doing so, a proper method of heat disappation must be applied regarding hard drive operations. Doing so will require you to understand the manufactuers thermal removal guide lines, which will give a detailed summary of what you need to do.
Overall, secondary storage devices such as hard disk drives, don't impact the performace factors significantly required to operate a gaming computer, but can add stable performance to applications and programs. We recommend purchasing a SATA drive because its shows the best value and performance marks compared to SCSI interfaces.