If you run into problems while working with a PC or laptop, the computer does not see the HDD, you hear some background noise, files in some folders do not open, or the equipment does not start at all, freezing on the boot screen, then the HDD of this device is not working properly. At the same time, access to a mass of information is lost on problem equipment: Word, Excel, 1C databases, photos, videos and others.

In such cases, if you need to recover information from the hard drive, we invite you to our Service Center. Our engineers have been working with hard drive problems since 2000, so the type, interface, problem or manufacturer is not important - we will help you in any case.

• controller malfunction
• malfunction of the magnetic head unit
• spindle wedge
• damage to service information
• the disk is not detected, does not spin up
• sticking heads on the surface
• unreadable sectors (bad blocks)
• others

• after formatting
• deleted files
• section lost
• rearranged windows
• virus
• hackers
• files lost

How we will restore your hard drive

Class 100 clean room

Repositioning the plates

Soldering stations

• How do you recover data from a hard drive?

Why is data being lost?

Typically, the problem is a physical disk failure. There may be no external reason for this. This is a complex device that has malfunctioned: the engine, head unit, firmware or electronics board is out of order. The disc began to crumble or stopped working at the same time, extraneous sounds appeared or the media, on the contrary, fell silent. In this case, the PC does not work or slows down, and when opening the files, it gives an error. In all these cases, it is possible to recover data from a disk.

The next most popular reason for the loss of information is external influence or the human factor, which consists in the inaccurate use of equipment or programs:

• Deleted files or formatted the disk;
• Reinstall Windows, reflash, update, or reset the device to factory settings;
• Did not install or did not update the antivirus on time, which resulted in file corruption by viruses;
• An external HDD, a computer case or a laptop was dropped to the floor, dropped from the car on the move, hit, stepped on;
• Fire, flood, power surge or short circuit.

How we are working

Delivery

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Diagnostics

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recovery

on professional equipment

check

quality and completeness of restoration

only if successful

How is data recovery performed from a hard drive?

Recovery of digital data from a hard drive is possible in nine cases out of ten. Even if the disc is badly damaged, do not rush to despair and accept the loss of a photo archive, the results of work performed, a collection of rare music or films. Our engineers will restore the information.

Recovery from a damaged disk is reduced to troubleshooting and reading data on a special hardware and software system. Sometimes the problem is fixed - the disk works as before, and the data is available. But such repairs are extremely rare. Typically, the disc is temporarily brought into a state suitable for reading information onto another healthy medium. To do this, depending on the problem, you will need:

• replacement of faulty magnetic heads or rearrangement of plates in a similar working disk housing;
• correction of errors in the firmware;
• replacing the board with soldering or reprogramming the ROM;
• elimination of sticking of magnetic heads on the surface of the plates;
• overcoming the consequences of unprofessional interference with the device, and so on.

Also, using special recovery tools, we solve the problems of disks with unreadable sectors. Such malfunctions lead to freezing of programs, and when you try to open or copy files, an error occurs. Attempts to restore by standard means in such cases lead to a worsening of the situation and complication of further work. The experience of our engineers and the correct use of professional tools give maximum results without creating additional risks for a faulty device.

In case of problems on serviceable media, we use special programs designed to restore hard drives after formatting, deleting, viruses or logical errors. The method is based on searching for information available from file records found during scanning of a medium. As a result, the exact directory structure is recreated, the names are preserved, the files are in the same places.

If, as a result of a logical failure, the file table is overwritten and the method described above does not give a positive result, the headers of each individual file on the hard disk are searched. This will allow you to get the contents of the files, but with the loss of names and folder structure, which is definitely better than the complete loss of information.

Typically, hard drive problems are complex. Unreadable sectors lead to logical destruction, a power failure damages both the external and internal electronics of the disk, a firmware failure and damage to the defect sheet causes a massive appearance of unreadable sectors or areas on the disk, faulty heads damage the surface of the platters, and so on.

The key to effective data recovery on disk is the work of experienced professionals in a laboratory equipped with the necessary specialized equipment and software. Therefore, in the event of problems on the hard disk, do not play Russian roulette - do not interfere with the device and do not ask for help from performers without experience working with faulty disks.

How much does it cost to repair a disk?

description of the problem	cost
Copying data from a working medium (without data recovery work)	2000 p.
Create a sector-by-sector copy of healthy media	2000 p.
"Logics" (deletion, formatting, partition magic / acronis / ghost errors, reinstalling windows, missing files / folders, viruses, asks to format / missing a partition, RAW file system, etc.

Greetings to all blog readers. Many people are interested in the question - how the hard disk of a computer works. Therefore, I decided to devote today's article to this.

A computer hard disk (HDD or hard drive) is needed to store information after the computer is turned off, in contrast to RAM () - which stores information until the power supply is cut off (before the computer is turned off).

A hard drive can rightfully be called a real work of art, only an engineering one. Yes Yes exactly. Everything is so complicated inside there. At the moment, all over the world, a hard disk is the most popular device for storing information; it is on a par with devices such as flash memory (flash drives), SSD. Many have heard a lot about the complexity of the hard drive and wonder how so much information can fit in it, and therefore would like to know how a computer hard drive works or what it consists of. Today there will be such an opportunity).

A hard drive has five main parts. And the first one is integrated circuit, which synchronizes the work of the disk with the computer and controls all processes.

The second part is an electric motor (spindle), makes the disk rotate at about 7200 rpm, and the IC keeps the speed constant.

And now the third, probably the most important part is the rocker arm, which can both write and read information. The end of the rocker arm is usually split to handle multiple discs at once. However, the rocker head never comes into contact with the discs. There is a gap between the surface of the disc and the head, the size of this gap is about five thousand times less than the thickness of a human hair!

But let's still see what happens if the gap disappears and the rocker head comes into contact with the surface of the rotating disc. We still remember from school that F \u003d m * a (Newton's second law, in my opinion), from which it follows that an object with a small mass and a huge acceleration becomes incredibly heavy. Given the enormous rotation speed of the disc itself, the weight of the rocker head becomes very, very noticeable. Naturally, disk damage is inevitable in this case. By the way, here's what happened to the disk, in which this gap disappeared for some reason:

The role of the friction force is also important, i.e. its almost complete absence, when the rocker begins to read information, while shifting up to 60 times per second. But wait, where is the engine here that sets the rocker in motion, and even at such a speed? In fact, it is not visible, because it is an electromagnetic system operating on the interaction of 2 forces of nature: electricity and magnetism. This interaction allows you to accelerate the rocker to the speed of light, in the literal sense.

Fourth part - the hard disk itself is where the information is written and from where the information is read, by the way, there may be several of them.

Well, the fifth and final part of the hard drive's design is, of course, the case in which all the other components are installed. The materials used are as follows: almost the entire body is made of plastic, but the top cover is always metal. The assembled case is often called a "containment". There is an opinion that there is no air inside the containment area, or rather, that there is a vacuum. This opinion is based on the fact that at such high rotational speeds of the disk, even a speck of dust that gets inside can do a lot of bad things. And this is almost true, except that there is no vacuum there - but there is purified, dried air or neutral gas - nitrogen, for example. Although, perhaps in earlier versions of hard drives, instead of purifying the air, it was simply pumped out.

We talked about components, i.e. what does a hard drive consist of... Now let's talk about data storage.

How and in what form is data stored on a computer hard drive

Data is stored in narrow tracks on the surface of the disc. During production, more than 200 thousand of these tracks are applied to the disc. Each of the tracks is divided into sectors.

Track and sector maps allow you to determine where to write or read information. Again, all the information about the sectors and tracks is in the memory of the integrated circuit, which, unlike other components of the hard drive, is not located inside the case, but outside and usually at the bottom.

The surface of the disc itself is smooth and shiny, but this is only at first glance. On closer inspection, the surface structure is more complex. The fact is that the disc is made of a metal alloy coated with a ferromagnetic layer. This layer does all the work. The ferromagnetic layer remembers all information, how? Very simple. The rocker head magnetizes a microscopic area on the film (ferromagnetic layer), setting the magnetic moment of such a cell in one of the states: o or 1. Each such zero and one are called bits. Thus, any information recorded on a hard disk is in fact a certain sequence and a certain number of zeros and ones. For example, a good quality photo takes up about 29 million of these cells, and is scattered across 12 different sectors. Yes, it sounds impressive, but in reality - such a huge number of bits occupies a very small area on the surface of the disc. Every square centimeter of hard disk surface contains tens of billions of bits.

How a hard drive works

We have just examined the device of the hard drive, each of its components separately. Now I propose to link everything into a certain system, thanks to which the principle of the hard disk operation will be clear.

So, the principle by which a hard drive works next: when the hard disk is turned on, it means that either it is being written to, or information is being read from it, or from it, the electric motor (spindle) starts to gain momentum, and since the hard disks are fixed on the spindle itself, respectively, they are together with it also start to rotate. And until the revolutions of the disc (s) have reached such a level that an air cushion is formed between the rocker arm and the disc, the rocker is in a special "parking zone" to avoid damage. This is what it looks like.

As soon as the revolutions reach the desired level, the servo drive (electromagnetic motor) sets the rocker in motion, which is already positioned in the place where you need to write or read information from. This is facilitated by the integrated circuit, which controls all the movements of the rocker arm.

It is widely believed, a kind of myth, that at times when the disk is "idle", i.e. temporarily no read / write operations are performed with it, hard disks inside stop spinning. This is really a myth, because in fact, the hard drives inside the case rotate constantly, even when the hard drive is in power-saving mode and nothing is written to it.

Well, here we have examined with you the device of the computer hard disk in all details. Of course, within the framework of one article, you cannot tell about everything related to hard drives. For example, this article did not say about it - this is a big topic, I decided to write a separate article about it.

Found an interesting video about how the hard drive works in different modes

Thank you all for your attention, if you have not yet subscribed to updates of this site - I highly recommend doing this, so as not to miss interesting and useful materials. See you on the blog pages!

Correctly? Which manufacturer should you prefer? How big should the hard disk be and why can't I see all the disk space on my system? Do you know such important characteristics of a hard disk as: form factor, cache, spindle speed, linear read speed, hard disk access time? How to check the hard drive and? What is an SSD and why is it faster than a simple hard drive HDD, but there is also? ? Why is it better to buy two disks: HDD and SSD for good performance of a new computer? We will answer all these questions in our article.

Hello friends, choosing a hard drive is not difficult at all, and an optical drive is even easier, but we will touch on this issue at the end of the article.

Disc types

Stationary personal computers (PCs) and laptops use hard disk drives (HDDs) and modern solid-state drives (SSDs) based on memory chips.

HDD (English HDD - Hard Disk Drive) is an electronic-mechanical device designed to store information on it. It has a large volume, but low speed and is used both for installing the operating system and storing user files.

The hard disk is made of aluminum or glass plates coated with a ferromagnetic layer and is a device operating on the principle of magnetic recording. When working inside a hard drive, everything is in motion. Magnetic heads that write, read, erase information hover above the surface of the magnetic plates of the hard disk at a height of 10-12 nm and never touch their surface, as they are easily damaged. HDD has long been morally obsolete and in the near future it will be completely replaced by SSD.

SSD - Solid State Drive (SSD, solid-state drive) is a non-mechanical storage device created on the basis of memory chips similar to random access memory or flash memory. SSDs are much more expensive than HDDs and have several times smaller volume, but high speed and are used to install the operating system and some programs to increase the speed of the PC. As you already understood, there are practically no mechanics inside the SSD. SSD is almost 5 times faster than HDD.

SSHD. There are also SSHD hybrid drives that have both magnetic platters for storing data and a small amount of solid-state memory for faster performance. But they have not yet taken root, since they are quite expensive and at the same time have little fast memory. The best option is to install separate HDD and SSD drives.

Form factor

Form factor refers to the size of a hard drive in inches. The main dimensions of hard drives:

2.5 "" - HDD drives for laptop and SSD.

3.5 "" HDD and hybrid drives for desktop PCs.

For laptops, only 2.5 "" HDD and SSD are used.

For stationary PCs, 3.5 "" HDDs are used, and 2.5 "" SSDs are installed in the case using a special mount that sometimes comes with it, but more often you have to purchase it additionally. Read our article on solid state drives SSD, all the details there.

Please note that screws for attaching a drive in a PC case are rare, and if you do not have them and the case does not have screwless fasteners, then ask the seller for 4 things, usually they have a lot of them.

Interface

An interface is a set of data exchange technology (standard) and a corresponding connector for connection.

IDE - outdated interface for parallel data transfer, used a wide 40 or 80 pin connector and a corresponding loop for connection. Data transfer rates up to 133 Mb / s. Disks with IDE interface are practically not produced anymore and are much more expensive.

A disk with an IDE interface can only be considered for connecting to a motherboard that does not have a newer type of connectors (SATA), but in most cases it is more expedient to purchase a more modern hard disk (SATA) and to connect it to an old board, it will come out cheaper and it will be possible in subsequently rearranged to a new computer.

The only drawback is that it is not always possible to install an operating system (OS) on a disk connected through such a controller, since the drivers are installed on the controller after the system is installed. But such a disk can be used as a file storage.

SATA - the first version of the high-speed serial interface, uses a thin pin connector and a corresponding ribbon cable for connection. Data transfer rates up to 1.5 Gb / s. This version of the interface was used on the first 2.5 and 3.5 "" HDDs and such drives are no longer available, but they are compatible with newer versions (SATA 2 and SATA 3) and can be connected to a motherboard with a connector of any of these versions.

SATA 2 - The second version of the high-speed serial interface, uses the same connector and cable as the SATA of the first version. Data transfer rates up to 3 Gb / s. This version of the interface is still used on 2.5 and 3.5 "" HDDs and older 2.5 "" SSD models. It is compatible with both older (SATA) and newer (SATA 3) interface versions and can be connected to a motherboard with a connector of either version.

SATA 3 - the third version of the high-speed serial interface. Data transfer rates up to 6 Gb / s. This version of the interface is used on modern HDD 2.5 and 3.5 "" and SSD 2.5 "". It is compatible with older (SATA and SATA2) interface versions and can be connected to a motherboard with a connector of either version.

Please note that cables from older interface versions (SATA and SATA 2) are not suitable for SATA 3, since they have insufficiently high frequency characteristics. SATA 3 cables are thicker and usually black in color. They come with motherboards with SATA 3 connectors, but they can be purchased separately.

It should be noted that the speed of the interface in any case significantly exceeds the capabilities of any modern hard disk, and for a disk with a SATA 3 interface, the SATA connector of the first version on the motherboard may be quite enough. However, in practice it happens differently, so it is still recommended that the SATA version of the motherboard interface is not lower than the SATA version of the hard drive interface. This is especially true for fast SSD drives with a SATA 3 interface, which should preferably be connected to the same SATA 3 connectors on the motherboard, otherwise the drive may not work at full speed (up to 30% slower).

The first SSD drives had a SATA2 interface and can still be found on the market, but they usually do not differ in high speed.

Power connectors

In addition to the differences in interface types (IDE and SATA), old and new disks also differ in power connectors.

The drives with IDE interface had a 4-pin Molex power connector.

Transitional models of drives with SATA interface, in order to be compatible with old power supplies, had two power connectors: the old 4-pin Molex and the new 15-pin SATA power connector.

At the same time, they usually had a warning note that it was impossible to connect power to both connectors at the same time, but some users managed to do this.

All modern drives with a SATA interface have a 15-pin SATA power connector, but if there is no such connector on the old PC's power supply, they can be connected through a special adapter from a 4-pin Molex connector.

By the way, it is customary to call a wire for data transmission - an interface loop, and for connecting a power supply - a power cable.

Capacity

Modern HDDs for PCs (3.5 "") have a capacity (volume) from 500 to 3000 Gigabytes (3 Terabytes).

HDD drives for notebooks (2.5 "") have capacities from 320 to 1000 GB (1 TB).

Fast solid state drives (2.5 "") have a capacity of 60-240 GB.

For a modern home PC, the standard today is a 1 TB HDD, which will allow you to place about 700 films or 5000 songs in normal quality or 290,000 photos in high quality or 100 modern games (usually in various combinations).

For a simple office PC, a minimum size of 320 GB will suffice.

For a laptop, if it is not used for storing multimedia or archived data, the optimal disk size is 500 GB, but 320 is also possible. If it is used as the main home PC, then it is better to take a closer look at the 750-1000 GB disk.

For professional use or serious hobby, you may need a 2-3 TB hard drive, or maybe several such drives. Please note only that if the BIOS of your motherboard does not support UEFI, then when you install the OS on a 3 GB disk, the system will not see its entire volume, about 700 GB will remain unused.

SSD drives are not used for storing information, as they are small and expensive. They are used only to install the system and some programs to improve the performance of the PC. A 60 GB SSD disk is enough to install Windows 7 or 8, but it is still advisable to purchase an SSD with a volume of about 120 GB, since firstly Windows is inherent in "growing", and secondly, you may want to install some powerful a program or a toy, and thirdly - such a volume is not promising. A 240GB SSD is cool, but still expensive and basically unnecessary.

When choosing a disk, keep in mind that it is not a reliable data storage and it is recommended to duplicate them on an external disk, otherwise you risk losing everything. If you plan to follow this advice, please note that you will need to purchase an external drive of a similar size. For example, to create copies of files from 2 home PCs (or PC and laptop) with 500 and 1000 GB drives, you will need an external drive with a capacity of 1500 GB. If you buy a 3 TB disk for your PC, how much more will you need to spend on a similar external disk ?! Better buy 2 disks of 1 TB.

Spindle speed

Most modern HDDs 2.5 and 3.5 "" have a spindle speed of 5400 or 7200 rpm. In general, the higher the spindle speed, the higher the drive speed.

Most of the 2.5 "" HDD has a spindle speed of 5400 RPM, in principle this is normal, since the noise and heating and consumption of such a disk in a laptop will be less.

Most 3.5 "" HDDs have a spindle speed of 7200 RPM, but models with a speed of 5400 RPM come across. I would not recommend taking the latter, since such a solution seems questionable for a normal high-quality PC disk and they work a little slower.

There are also fast 3.5 "" HDDs with a spindle rotation speed of 10,000-15,000 RPM (for example, the WD Raptor series), but they are quite expensive (from $ 200 for 1 TB), and are faster by only 30%. They are also quite noisy. Better for this money to buy a 128 GB SSD and 1 TB HDD.

An SSD has no spindle, since it consists of memory chips, so there can be no question of its rotation speed.

Buffer size

Buffer size is the size of the cache, made in the form of a memory chip on the electronic board of the hard disk controller and designed to speed up its operation. The larger the cache memory, the higher the speed of the disk.

Older hard drives had a buffer size of 8-16 MB.

Modern HDDs have 32-64 MB of cache memory.

In principle, the difference in the operating speed of identical hard drives with 32 and 64 MB of cache memory is insignificant (less than 5%). But it makes no sense to buy a hard drive with a buffer size of less than 32 MB.

Most modern and expensive hard drives have 128MB of cache, but they are not yet very common.

Linear read speed

Linear read speed refers to the speed at which data is continuously read from the surface of platters (HDDs) or memory chips (SSDs), and is the main characteristic that reflects the real performance of a disk. It is measured in megabytes per second (Mbps).

Older IDE HDDs had an average linear read speed of 40 to 70 MB / s.

Modern HDDs with SATA interface have an average linear read speed from 100 to 140 MB / s.

SSD drives have an average linear read speed of 160 to 560 MB / s.

The linear read speed of HDD disks depends on the density of data recording on the magnetic surface of the platters and the quality of the disk mechanics. Basically, all HDD disks of the same generation have a similar recording density, so a higher speed speaks primarily of the quality of the mechanics. At the same time, an HDD with better mechanics does not cost much more. The main thing here is to be able to choose the right disk model, which is complicated by the fact that sellers rarely indicate their speed parameters. You have to look for this information yourself.

The linear read speed of SSD drives depends on the speed of the memory chips. But unlike HDDs, SSDs with faster memory are significantly more expensive. It is much easier to choose an SSD disk model, since sellers always indicate their speed characteristics.

For modern HDD disks, a good indicator is an average linear read speed of 120 MB / s, for SSD disks - 450 MB / s.

There is also such a parameter as the linear write speed, which accordingly reflects the write speed to the disk and is also measured in MB / s. For HDD disks, write speed is usually less than read speed and is not taken into account when choosing a disk. But for SSD disks, the write speed can be the same as the read speed or less, and you need to pay attention to this. It is desirable that the SSD drive has the same write and read speed, for example 450/450 MB / s.

Access time

Access time refers to the speed at which the disk finds the required file after the operating system or some program has accessed it. This time is measured in milliseconds (ms). This parameter has a big impact on disk performance when working with small files and not much when working with large files.

HDD disks have access time from 12 to 18 ms. A good indicator is the access time of 13-14 ms, which indirectly indicates the quality (accuracy) of the disc mechanics.

SSD drives have access times of the order of 0.1-0.2 ms, which is 100 times faster than HDD drives! Therefore, you can ignore this parameter when choosing an SSD drive and it is usually not indicated by sellers in the price lists.

Manufacturers

The main manufacturers of HDD drives are:

Fujitsu - the Japanese company, previously famous for the high quality of its products, is currently represented by a small number of models and is not very popular, but has a very democratic pricing policy.

Hitachi - the Japanese company, both earlier and now, is distinguished by the stable quality of hard drives, since it introduces only proven reliable technologies, therefore the model range of this company is updated somewhat slower than that of competitors. By purchasing a Hitachi hard drive, you won't go wrong, getting good quality for a reasonable price.

Samsung - this Korean company entered the hard disk market later than the others and their quality left much to be desired at that time. Samsung drives were made in cheap cases, warmed up and quickly failed. To date, Samsung, in my opinion, has overtaken all its competitors and produces the fastest and highest quality HDD disks. They may be priced slightly higher than the competition, but worth it.

Seagate Is an American company, a pioneer in the field of technologies used in hard drives. It was once famous for its advanced solutions and the quality of its discs. Unfortunately, the quality of hard drives from this company leaves much to be desired. I do not recommend purchasing them.

Toshiba Is a Japanese company, about which we can say everything the same as about Fujitsu - it was also famous for its high quality earlier, and now it is represented by a small number of models in our market. In this regard, there may be problems in the service of such manufacturers.

Western Digital (WD) Is an American company specializing in the production of hard drives. Its discs have always been considered more reliable. For example, they used higher quality bearings than competitors, but because of this they were always noisier. Like Hitachi, WD drives have always had a more or less stable workmanship. But, lately, the disks of this company do not stand out with outstanding characteristics, as for example Samsung. I would position them between Hitachi, stable in quality, and Seagate, which has rolled into consumer goods.

In general, I would advise you to choose between Samsung and Hitachi, as the highest quality, fastest and most stable.

SSD manufacturers

With the choice of the manufacturer of SSD drives, the situation is somewhat different. Since they consist of memory microcircuits, they are produced by the companies that produce RAM.

As reputable manufacturers, I would recommend the following: Corsair, Crucial, Intel, Kingston, OCZ, Samsung, Sandisk, Toshiba, Transcend.

It is better not to buy SSDs from well-known Chinese brands such as: A-Data, Apacer, Silicon Power.

Price

As for HDD disks, their price depends more on their volume. The dependence on the brand, model and even quality is not so significant (5-10%), since buyers rarely pay attention to such moments. Accordingly, it is not particularly advisable to save on hard disk space. Just pick the size you want, a good manufacturer, and compare specifications such as linear read speed and access time. I will not quote prices for HDD drives, as the pricing in this segment is not adequate and depends more on marketing gimmicks. Their prices can fluctuate from year to year by 2-3 times, both in the direction of reduction in price and in the direction of rise in price. I described a similar situation in the article on RAM. For example, after the flood in Taiwan in 2011, prices for hard drives soared 2.5 times on average, and there is another wave of the financial crisis, etc., due to which prices for them have not yet returned to adequate technical progress. level.

Theoretically, the parameters of an HDD disk can be found out by the model number on the manufacturer's website, but in practice I rarely succeeded, since it is rather difficult to find and understand these parameters on the manufacturer's website. But there is a much easier way.

There is a fairly popular program for testing the speed (and some other parameters) of the hard drive - HDTune. The manufacturer's website has a paid (with a limited trial period) and a free version of this program.

http://www.hdtune.com/

But we don't need it to select a disk. We are only interested in the results of tests in this program made by other users.

HDTune allows you to define two main parameters - linear read speed and random access time.

In addition, the very nature of the graph can determine the quality of the disc mechanics.

Here is an example of a disc with conventional mechanics

But with a very high quality and accurate

Did you notice the difference? If the disk has good mechanics, then in addition to its speed parameters, such as the linear read speed and access time, the linear speed graph will have a nice, cyclically repeating shape, and the random access time measurement points will be quite obese.

In order to find the test results of the disc you are interested in, enter its model number in the image search in Google. Now almost all sellers indicate the model number in the price list, earlier there were problems with this and you had to go to a store or warehouse to look at the disc live, or get the sellers by phone, which for some reason they really didn’t like)

Find at least 2-3 similar pictures to make sure that the tests performed are objective. Pay attention to the fact that the required model is indicated in the picture.

Optical drive

We determine the interface: IDE - for old PCs without SATA connectors or SATA - for all new PCs. If you cannot find an IDE drive for your old PC, then you will need to purchase a SATA drive and PCI-SATA controller.

Determine which drive you need: DVD-RW (also called DVD Super Multi) or Blu-Ray (more expensive drive for discs of the same name). If you do not have Blu-Ray discs and do not know why you need it, then you do not need such a drive).

We choose popular manufacturers: ASUS, LG, Samsung and choose the cheapest available model, they will hardly differ in anything. If you like to be reinsured, you can choose the most expensive model, the difference in price will be negligible (no more than $ 5).

You can also purchase a drive from such manufacturers as: BENQ, HP, Lite-On, Pioneer, which may have special recording modes and proprietary software, if you know why you need it. Ordinary users do not need this, but they can add problems with warranty service.

What you should pay attention to is the color. It happens: black, silver and white (already rare). This is important if you want the drive to blend in with your PC case design. If your PC case is black or silver, then black is more suitable. In addition, the black drive panel is made of black plastic, while the silver one is always painted and may wear off during use.

DVD drive costs $ 20-30. The optimal price is $ 25.

The cheapest Blu-ray drive costs $ 65. The optimal price is $ 75-85.

That's all friends. We really hope that we helped you choose a hard drive for your computer!

Hard disk drive (HDD) - is one of the most important components of a computer! And it is the hard drive that most often fails. As a result, sometimes the most important information is lost. Therefore, to the choice HDD need to be treated with maximum seriousness! In this article, we will analyze which there are hard drives,as select hard disk (HDD)for your computer like avoid problems with information lossand with the help what programs can be restored.

Hard disk size.

Hard disk size (its width, suitable for standard mounts in stationary computers and laptops) calculated in inches.

Usually for pets (stationary) system blocks use hard drives 3.5 inch (3,5" ).

For laptops - 2.5 inch, respectively - 2,5" .

Connector Type.

HDD connector interface there are two types - IDE and SATA.

IDE - still comes across in older computers and differs in the number of veins on the train ( 40 and 80 lived, they are interchangeable, differ in bandwidth speed ).

IDE - plug

SATA - newer, modern interface. Of course higher throughput versus IDE.

SATA there are three types. SATA (up to 1.5 Gbps), SATA 2 (before 3 Gbps) and SATA 3 (before 6 Gbps) ... Differ in data transmission speed.

SATA, SATA2 , SATA3 - are interchangeable. But before you buy a more expensive hard drive with SATA3 , make sure your motherboard is supported SATA3, otherwise, you will receive an unreasonable expenditure of funds, because. SATA3 HDD connected to interface SATA on an old motherboard, will run at a limited speed of up to 1,5 Gbps, not using all their capabilities.

SATA - connector

The volume of the Hard disk.

Quite often, computer users confuse the concepts - memory and volume. :) Please remember, the hard disk only has cache memory (we'll talk about it below ...).

Volume, it is - capacity! Namely - amount of digital information, which is able to accommodate this or that HDD. Now the volume of the hard disk is calculated in Gigabytes (GB) and Terabytes (TB).

For reference: 1 TB \u003d 1024 GB

1 GB \u003d 1024 MB

Rotation speed of disks.

A fairly common indicator of HDD speed - disc rotation speed (rpm). Of course, the higher the rotation speed, the louder the hard drive will make noise and the higher its power consumption (this affects the service life). If you are going to buy an HDD just for storing information (additional disk), in this case, you should not chase the speed. I advise you to choose a faster hard disk - if the Operating System is installed on it. At the moment, 7200 rpm is the most the best option.

The size of the cache memory.

Cache memory (buffered) is intermediate memory. It is designed to increase the speed of the hard disk while accessing its data. IN "cache" are keptresponses to the most frequent system and application requests. And of course, there is no need to constantly read information from the disk itself. this increases the efficiency of the HDD and the system as a whole. The size of the "cache" in modern hard drives usually ranges from 8 before 64 MB.

Manufacturing firm.

At the moment, the main manufacturers of hard drives are - Western digital, Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate Technology, Toshiba. You can argue until the mustache :) argue which company is better ... But let's turn to the facts... Let's type in an intelligent search engine Nigma.ru "hard drive problem ....." (instead of dots - we write a company):

hard drive problemHitachi -requests 5 400 000.

hard drive problem Seagate - requests 5 500 000.

hard drive problemWestern Digital -requests 7,400,000 .

hard drive problemSamsung -requests 17 000 000.

As you can see, the first place in reliability belongs to Hitachi, second at Seagate. Although, based on my own experience, I would put in second placeWestern Digital (WD).

WDcome with stickers of different colors - Black (the black), Blue (blue), Green (green). The most reliable is considered Black, In second place Blue and at the last Green.

So, when choosing a hard drive:

1. Important! You need to find out - what plug from your old hard drive. If a IDE, then I advise you to look at the connectors on the motherboard. In the presence of SATA-connectionsbetter buy SATA hard drive. With absence SATA, buy IDE.

2. Important! Find out if your old PSU can handle a new one (possibly more voluminous and faster) hDD.

You can find out how to do this by watching the video tutorialHow to choose the right Power Supply!

3. Decide on Volume(number of GB), Speed(rpm) and "Cash" (8-64MB) hard drive.

4. Choose manufacturer.

How to avoid problems with information loss.

1. Keep backup copy of data on removable media.

HDD is a storage device - a hard disk drive. "HDD" is an abbreviation of the English phrase Hard Disk Drive. Other names for HDD: hard disk, hard drive, hard disk drive, screw, hard, tin, tin.

What is HDD for?

HDD is used to store information. The information on the hard drive is called data. The data on the disk is organized by the file system and is represented as files.

HDD is computer memory. Do not confuse it with RAM. Hard disk - volatile memory, RAM - volatile.

Winchester is now the main storage device, and if you have a computer, then there is a screw.

How HDD works

Hard disks, that is, HDDs, work in a similar way to a device that everyone has long forgotten about - a "turntable", with a rotating disc and a needle for playing music. Converting elements (read / write heads) used in hard drives are similar to read / write heads that are used in VCRs and stereo cassette recorders to access information on magnetic media.

In hard drives, information is stored on a rotating metal or glass plate covered with a magnetic material. As a rule, the disc consists of several plates connected by a common rod - a spindle. Each plate is something like a vinyl record with a record played back by a turntable. Information is usually stored on both sides of the plate.

As the disc spins, an element called a head reads or writes binary data onto the magnetic medium. The information on the disc is recorded using any coding method, of which there are a great many. The encoding method and recording density are determined by the disc controller.

Without going further into the description of the principle of HDD operation, we can say that a hard drive is, in fact, a super-player with a bunch (or maybe just one) of records inside. Although, of course, due to the complexity of the device, the player was not lying around with it.

Past and future of HDD

The very first HDD was developed by IBM in the early 70s.

In 1983, with the release of the first IBM PC / XT computer, a hard drive from Seagate Technology appeared in the lives of thousands of newly minted, still wild users. The interface of the first hard drives, designed by Alan Shugart (founder of Seagate Technology), was the de facto standard for HDDs for many years. Further developments of Seagate formed the basis for ESDI and IDE interfaces. Sugart also developed the SCSI interface, which is now used in many modern computers.

By the way, now Seagate hard drives are the best-selling in Europe. And in Russia, who does not know the famous Barracuda?

The most important direction in the development of hard disk technology has always been to increase their (storage) capacity. Progress in this area is particularly fueled by the ever-increasing requirements of software. Increasing the storage capacity is possible either by increasing the size of the drives themselves or by increasing the storage density. The limit of increasing the size of the HDD has been reached, the limit of data storage density has not yet been reached. But not for long.

Need to know

1. HDD is a complex piece of information storage

2. The hard disk is short-lived and with constant use it is unlikely to live more than three years

3. It is highly undesirable to carry the hard disk (somewhere), twirl it in your hands and generally take it out of the computer case. Winchester is very sensitive to vibration!

4. The internal structure of the HDD is very complex. If you once went to a circle of young radio amateurs, this does not mean at all that you can now repair hard drives. Repairing hard drives requires more than a soldering iron!

5. Fans of poking around in the hardware should remember that by opening the HDA, you thereby put an end to both the information and the hard drive itself

6. According to storage security, information carriers can be arranged in the following order (with increasing risk of data loss): head, paper, hard drive. Do not store important information on HDD! And if you have to - constantly make a backup!

7. If the information on the hard disk is not available for some reason, do not try to recover it! Most likely, you will only finally destroy it - it is better to contact the professionals. Recovering information is not a mess for you!

8. The word "HDD" is abusive and is not used in a decent society, it characterizes something (to put it mildly) unreliable, short-lived and disgusting