How To: What is the difference between a hard drive and a solid-state drive and how to replace them? – Part 3

The platter is a magnetic disc akin to a CD or DVD and stores the data in magnetic cells called Data Tracks that can be modified or deleted. The head is the steward that serves the purpose of storing, accessing or deleting the data from the tracks. The spindle rotates the disc in dazzling speeds to help the head move to the correct spot.

The modern hard drives are so small that the metrics used to measure everything is calculated in nano decimals. To see the working of a hard drive, CNet’s editor Dong Ngo gave the following example.

“To put this in context, if we enlarged the Scorpio Blue by 13,000 times, the platter would look like a circular race track about 3.3 miles in diameter; a data track would be about 0.4 inch in length, and the head would be about the size of a go-cart. When the hard drive is in operation, this go-cart would be flying on the track less than the thickness of a human hair above it, at the speed of some 3.4 million miles per hour.”

On the other hand, an SSD works very quietly and more efficiently than a hard disc. One of the reasons why SSDs are exponentially efficient than its predecessors is the fact that it incorporates no moving parts, hence Solid-State.

The working of a solid-state drive is very simple yet very elegant, though the technology used in it is the quiet expensive.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Mar 14 2012. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.