Components

How to choose a hard drive for a computer and laptop

Choosing a hard drive for beginners seems like a major problem. Hard is a really complex and expensive technique on which the operation of the entire computer depends. But even if you do not consider yourself a cool IT specialist, you can pick up a good hard drive to replace a hard drive that has become unusable or simply to expand its capabilities. It is enough to use our advice.

The best hard drive manufacturers - which company to choose

Even the most famous manufacturers have hard drives in their product lines that can hardly be called good. So when choosing, although you need to pay attention to the name on the box, you should not get too hung up on it.

Moreover, due to the fierce competition of recent decades, the number of firms producing hard drives has seriously decreased. Some simply ceased to exist, others were absorbed by large corporations. As a result, the buyer was left with a poor choice.

The only companies that produce decent hard and remain afloat today are:

Seagates;
Western Digital;
Hitachi;
Toshiba.

You can see the pros and cons of the best hard drive models from these manufacturers in our rating. However, you need to choose a hard drive according to your tasks and computer capabilities, so the recommendations of our experts will definitely come in handy.

The hard drive consists of two main components: the electronics unit and the containment area. To understand how this works, let's look at each of them separately.

The electronics unit (or control board) is the "brain" of your hard drive. A real computer in a computer with its own processor, which processes the data received from the PC and from the disk itself.

Other important hard controls are also located here:

1. Cache memory chip;

2. A driver that controls the operation of the spindle motor that turns the disks;

3. ROM with a set of basic programs for launching (may be absent if the functions of this chip are delegated to the processor).

The hermetic block is a set of high-precision mechanisms enclosed in a case made of a durable metal-plastic composite. Most of it is occupied by a package of metal, glass or ceramic discs with a magnetic coating.

It is on their surface that all information is written / read. The disks are strung on the spindle of the engine installed here, which ensures their rotation at a speed of 5400 to 15000 rpm.

Reading and writing information is due to the block of magnetic heads. Their modes of operation are switched by a preamplifier switch, and movement relative to the surface of the disks is provided by a servo drive with a permanent magnet. In solid-state SSD models, all mechanics are replaced by chips on the platform.

The principle of operation of a classic hard drive is reminiscent of a cassette recorder: the disk rotates, and the read / write head creates a magnetic field that acts on its surface.

Types of hard drives

IDE interface - minimum speed and volume

IDE hard drives require parallel connection of drives (hard, CD/DVD-ROM), for which 40- or 80-wire cables up to 46 cm long are used. The throughput of screws with this interface reaches 133 MB/s, and the maximum volume 137 GB.

IDE hard drives are only suitable for old-style computers (late 90s - early 2000s) and are themselves considered obsolete, but they are still on sale.

Pros:

Low cost - both the hard drive itself and the cables to it;
Terminators are not required to connect the loop;
Good data transfer rate;
Ease of configuration.

Minuses:

A small number of connected devices - up to 4;
Does not withstand heavy loads.

SATA interface - slow but roomy

SATA is a serial interface for data exchange with drives, a kind of improved version of IDE. The cable size here reaches 1 m, and the volume of the hard itself is 1-2 TB.

Other hard disk specifications depend on the SATA version:

1. SATA 1 - the screw operates at a frequency of 1.5 gigahertz, and its throughput reaches 150 MB / s;

2. SATA 2 - the frequency and bandwidth of the hard drive doubles, reaching 3 GHz and 300 MB / s.

3. SATA 3 - here the characteristics double again: the frequency is up to 6 GHz, and the bandwidth is up to 600 MB / s.

In general, SATA drives are considered not the fastest, but very, very roomy.

Pros:

Quite good indicators of frequency, performance and bandwidth;
Large amounts of memory;
Easy to connect - no tedious settings;
Identical plugs on SATA interfaces of different versions;
Reliability and long service life.

Minuses:

High price;
Short connection cables;
Not the highest speed.

SCSI interface - high speed, high capacity

The largest and fastest hard drives have a SCSI interface and are therefore used in various stations and servers. They have more bandwidth (up to 160 MB / s), but, more importantly, such hard drives can support from 7 to 15 connected devices at the same time.

The length of the cables in SCSI hard drives reaches 12 m, and they themselves are very difficult to install. But the amount of their memory can hold about 3 TB of information.

Pros:

High performance and throughput;
A large number of simultaneously supported devices - both internal and external;
Huge amounts of memory;
The most expensive devices with FC-AL technology allow hot plugging.

Minuses:

Not the most affordable cost;
Difficulties with installation.

SAS interface - great speed but low volume

Such hard drives have a universal connector and are perfectly combined with SATA, if you need to increase the volume of the drive - alas, SAS capacity is often not enough. But such a drive is capable of supporting over 16,000 devices simultaneously, providing an exorbitant data transfer rate of up to 6 GB / s due to rotation at high speeds (from 7200 per minute).

Pros:

Very high performance and throughput;
Easy to install;
Compatibility with hard drives that have a different type of interface;
Durability;
There is a self-diagnosis function.

Minuses:

Outrageous cost;
Relatively small amount of memory.

SSD

Back in 2009, there was nothing to replace a regular HDD. Today, its functions may well take over or complement more productive SSDs - Solid-State drives. These SSDs have no moving parts and are basically a set of flash memory chips on a single board - in other words, they are very large flash drives.

Pros:

Unrealistically high speed of work;
"Vitality" - there are no delicate precision mechanics that require careful handling;
Compact size and light weight;
Low energy consumption;
Absolutely silent operation;
Ability to combine SSD and HDD.

Minuses:

Very high price;
There are restrictions on rewriting cycles - when the limit is exhausted, the disk will require replacement.

Memory size

This is a very important indicator when buying, and here you need to follow the principle: the more the better - sooner or later you will fill your screw to the limit. But a larger drive also costs more, so try to set reasonable limits for yourself in advance.

Decide what you need a computer for:

1. To work with documents and office programs, 500 GB hard drive is enough for the eyes;

2. For games and multimedia, you should choose a hard drive from a terabyte and above.

The main thing when buying a powerful hard drive is to remember that not every computer will pull it. To eliminate the error, first look in the "Boot" settings, which firmware you have: BIOS or its more modern version - UEFI. In the first case, it makes no sense to shove a hard drive larger than 2 terabytes into the computer, but in the second case, you can assume that your hands are untied.

Work speed

A large disk does not guarantee fast machine operation. Although the size still indirectly affects the speed, since the recording is “dense” on a voluminous hard drive, which means that a little less time is spent on data processing.

However, pay attention to your hard drive's performance in MB/s and look for the highest performance in your price range. Now in stores you can buy screws operating at speeds from 150 to 600 MB / s, and if you fork out for a SAS interface, then up to 6 GB / s.

Spindle speed

This indicator determines the number of rotations of magnetic disks on the axis per unit of time (usually per minute) and affects the performance of not only the hard drive itself, but also the computer. The faster the spindle spins, the better and quieter your hard will be.

In most cases, the spindle rotates at a speed of 5400 to 7200 rpm. But there are models that easily develop 10-15 thousand rpm. Yes, they are “more responsive” in work, but they are also expensive.

Clipboard size

The hard drive uses the built-in memory (cache) most often. In most cases, hard drives have a multiple of 8 cache size: from 16 to 64 MB. You will not feel much difference between them, but for better and faster hard work, you should choose a larger buffer - 32 or 64 MB.

Form Factor

In fact, this is just the size of the hard drive box, but it just determines where your screw will fit, and where it simply won't fit.

Here, manufacturers suggest starting from the thickness in inches:

1. 1.8 ″ - with their small capacity, these mini-hard drives are quite expensive and therefore not widely used.

2. 2.5″ - mainly used in laptops, because they are lightweight and consume relatively little electricity (2-2.5 W). Sometimes such hard drives are installed in home multimedia systems.

3. 3.5 ″ are “large” drives with a good amount of memory (today there are models that reach up to 10 TB), but they are only suitable for installation in a PC system unit and require 7-10 W of energy to work.

Memory chips (for SSD)

If you decide to fork out for an SSD anyway, you should consider existing overwriting restrictions.

It all depends on the technology used in the memory chips:

1. SLC - cells in such a chip contain only 1 bit of information (in binary code 1 or 0). But they are characterized by high speed and can withstand up to 100,000 write cycles.

2. MLC - store 2 bits per cell, which is why the size of these hard drives will be half as much with the same amount of memory. They are slower than SLC and have a limit of 10 thousand cycles, but they are much cheaper.

3. FRAM is a relatively new technology that has not yet gone mainstream. There is also a finite amount of rewrite cycles here, but the restrictions are so conditional that they do not deserve attention. Such a solid state drive should work for about 40 years without stopping in order to exhaust its resource.

1. If you need the cheapest hard drive (for example, to perform simple tasks on a PC), choose an HDD with up to 500 GB of memory and 16 MB of cache.

2. The SATA interface is suitable for computers under 10 years old, "old people" will most likely need an IDE.

3. It is better to give preference to the 3.5″ form factor, but if there are connectors for 2.5″, choose any of these options.

4. Performance of 150 MB / s and a rotation speed of 5400 rpm will be enough. Of course, such a hard drive is noisy, but it will turn out to be almost one and a half times cheaper than faster screws.

5. If you want to assemble a powerful gaming computer, it is better to immediately purchase 2 types of drives - HDD and SSD. The first one must have a memory capacity of at least 1 TB - you will use it to store personal information (photos, videos, documents, music, etc.), and on the second "hang" the operating system, powerful games and resource-intensive programs.

6. Want a powerful computer, but don't have enough money to buy two hard drives together? Choose one - the one that you can afford, but try to get closer to the "game" indicators. The only thing is that for hard you can reduce the cache requirements to 32 MB.