Hard-disks

Kathleen Rippe Katie Smith Brandon Gauthier Jon Robinson

How a Hard Disk Stores Information

The data stored in a hard disk will not be erased when the computer is turned off. When the CPU of a computer needs to use information stored on the hard disk, the data will be copied from the hard disk to the computer's RAM.

How Much Can it hold you ask?

Modern hard disks can store anywhere between 10 and 80 gigabytes. 500 gigabyte drives can be found but at very high prices. Hard disk drives range in size, but are usually 5.25 inches or 3.5 inches. (This size usually depends on the size of the platters in the disk.)

Hard-disk History

Hard disks were invented in the 1950s.

They started as large disks up to 20 inches in diameter holding just a few megabytes. They were originally called "fixed disks" or "Winchesters" (a code name used for a popular IBM product). They later became known as "hard disks" to distinguish them from "floppy disks."

Hard-disk History

There are several interface standards for passing data between a hard disk and a computer.
The two most commonly debated are the IDE / EIDE and the SCSI

Hard-disk History

IDE Integrated Drive Electronics

Evolution of BIOS mid 1980s Max capacity 504MB

Hard-disk History

SASI- Shugart Associates System Interface

Howard Shugart-creator of floppy disks 1979

Hard-disk History

SCSI- Small Computer System Interface

Pronounced scuzzy Standardized version of earlier SASI 1986

Hard-disk History

EIDE- Extended IDE

LBA- Logical Block Addressing Increased transfer rates Max capacity 128GB 1994

Hard-disk History

SATA -Serial ATA

Serial ATA is the next -generation internal storage interconnect, designed to replace parallel ATA technology 150Mbytes/sec (current) 600Mbytes/sec (planned)

How far we have come:

A Not-Even-OneInch Drive In 2004, Toshiba introduced the first 0.85" hard disk.

The Outside

There is an aluminum case in which the hard drive is contained. It is a chamber that holds all of a hard disk's components.

A Look Inside

Platters a spindle motor heads a head actuator on the outside there is a logic board.

Construction

platter: disk made of metal (usually aluminum) with a magnetizable coating (on both sides)
spindle: the drives center shaft on which the platters are mounted head: uses induction to write a data pattern onto the platter; also reads the data back

Construction

cylinder: the set of tracks at a given radial position

track: circular sequence of bits written as the disk makes a complete rotation each track is divided into some number of fixed- length sectors

Construction

a sector typically contain 512 data bytes

preceded by a preamble that allows the head to be synchronized before reading or writing following the data is an Error-Correcting Code (ECC) between sectors is a small intersector gap
Intersector gap sector Preamble sector ECC Preamble

...

...

ECC

4096 data bytes

4096 data bytes

Operation

the disk head, which contains an induction coil, floats just over the surface, resting on a cushion of air
when a positive or negative current passes through the head, it magnetizes the surface just beneath it, aligning the magnetic particles facing left or right, depending on the polarity of the drive current When the head passes over a magnetized area, a positive or negative current is induced and the previously stored particles can then be read back

Command Queuing
Speed of hard-drives have reached the physical limit, the parts simply cant move much faster. NCQ NCQ offered major performance improvements over drives that dont have NCQ, at the cost of CPU time

RAID

Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks Controller based technology that applies to HD The idea is to use a collection of cheap hard-drives to equal or exceed the level of performance of a larger disk. Many different types of RAID

Perpendicular Bit Recording

The idea is to make hard-disk platters more dense by having the magnetization of each data bit aligned vertically rather than horizontally
Developed by Hitachi

First drive: Seagate Momentus 5400.3 a 2.5 inch notebook hard-disk up to 160 GB

Get Perpendicular

Click

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/research/recording_head/pr/index.html

S.M.A.R.T.

Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology A set of software tools on the drive itself, then another set on the controller Allows PC to predict future failure of harddisk Monitors disk statistics Can detect around 70% of all hard-disk failure before they happen

QUESTION

What part of the hard-disk does the reading and the writing to the platter?

Answer:

What part of the hard-disk does the reading and the writing to the platter?

The Head