A hard disk is a device on which computer data is stored, namely: the operating system and other files, such as movies, games, music, and so on. The article will present the hard disk device and spindle speed.
Mechanical storage device
The physical device of a hard drive is quite complex, but at the same time quite understandable.
The enumeration of the parts of the hard drive begins with a read head located directly above the surface of the disk, which is magnetic. Its task is to determine the changes in the magnetic flux that produce zero and single bits.
The next part of the hard drive is a solenoid drive, which is responsible for accessing data by moving the heads to different tracks of the magnetic plate. It is this part of the hard drive that is considered particularly vulnerable, since the accuracy of its movements directly depends on the impact of external physical factors on it.
Next is the spindle, which is responsible for the number of revolutions of the HDD per minute, thereby providing the necessary throughput.
The fourth part of the hard drive is magnetic plates. They are fixed on the spindle, their number is always different, and they are located on each other.
The next part of the hard drive is its power, which is carried out using a special cable, which leads to the power supply.
The connection interface is necessary for integration with the motherboard and further identification of the hard disk in the system.
Next, you can note the head, which is responsible for reading and writing information on the hard drive.
The role of the permanent magnet is also important - it keeps the head of the hard drive in permanent fixation.
The positioner pivot is responsible for the ability of the device to access any information by changing the position and fixing it.
The last part is the head preamp, which is necessary to amplify the signal from the drive to the system board and vice versa. The fact is that initially the signal coming from the hard drive is very weak, so this chip is simply necessary for the correct operation and data transfer between equipment.
Hard drive speed
In the modern world, many people use advanced types of drives - SSD. However, for many reasons, most users are reluctant to part with old hard drives, leaving them as a repository of variable data like games, movies, and so on.
The performance of a mechanical drive is directly affected by the spindle speed, which is responsible for data transfer. However, this parameter also largely depends on several variables:
- The interface through which you connect to the motherboard. At the moment, there is an interface capable of transmitting data at a speed of up to 600 megabytes per second.
- The clipboard is necessary for the transmission of short-term content, so its performance should be maximum.
- Many algorithms are able to affect the speed of information exchange, so support for many algorithms is necessary.
- The volume of the hard drive is also important, since its size depends on how quickly the hard drive can identify and detect the desired sector to give access to it.
- Spindle revolutions. This indicator is one of the main ones, since the number of revolutions per minute directly affects the speed of the system in further work. Hard drives with different spindle speeds operate in different speed ranges.
Definition
The spindle speed of the hard disk is an indicator that shows the maximum number of revolutions during standard operation. This parameter is necessary to provide the maximum opportunity for transferring information from the hard drive to the other components of the PC. This is what the spindle speed affects.
Where is the spindle and what is its task
The spindle is located inside the hard drive and plays the role of the axis on which the magnetic plates are located. The plates are mounted on the spindle so that when reading the heads can perform the function of reading / writing, excluding contact with the plates.
For the hard drive to function correctly, a working spindle motor is required to ensure constant rotation of the plates for many hours. The most interesting thing is that most hard drive failures occur precisely with spindle motor dysfunction.
Hard drive formats
Hard drives are of two types - it is 3.5 and 2.5. Their difference is that the first option is used in desktop computers, and the second can often be found in mobile computers or server assemblies.
The spindle speed in the 3.5-inch form factor is 7200 rpm. Such an indicator positively affects the productive part of the system as a whole. The maximum spindle speed of a hard disk of this format can reach 15 thousand rpm.
The 2.5 form factor has no difference in speed with the first option - its number of revolutions per minute can also vary from 5400 to 15000 rpm.
At the moment, in modern cases there is a special modification that allows the use of 2.5 format hard drives in 3.5 connectors by using a slide.
How to determine the number of revolutions on your hard drive
There are two ways to determine the spindle speed and rpm.
The first method is physical and the simplest. Each hard drive has a label on which the RPM value will be displayed, and in front of these letters there will be numbers - this is what they indicate the spindle speed of the external hard drive or internal.
If there is no desire to disassemble the system unit case, then for such cases there are several programs that can tell absolutely everything about the hard drive. One such program is CrystalDiskInfo, which displays the temperature, the interface used and supported, the number of starts and hours worked, the number of revolutions (RPM), and the general status of the hard disk.
Another program that can determine the parameters of a hard disk is AIDA64. To determine the parameters of rotation and revolutions, you must run the program and select the "Data Storage" tab in the left table, where the hard disk will be displayed. Left-clicking on it, you can see all the data regarding the selected hard drive.
The ratio of speed and quality
The spindle speed is set when creating a hard disk, and it is impossible to exceed it.
5400 rpm hard drives are installed in laptops by default, as they meet such qualities as low power consumption and high reliability. Sometimes hard drives with such indicators can be found in desktop computers, where they are marked as "green", that is, environmentally friendly due to significantly lower power consumption.
The golden mean in terms of the number of revolutions is hard drives with a spindle speed of 7200 rpm. These hard drives are fast enough and reasonably consume energy. Hard drives with so many revolutions can be found in 90 percent of desktop computers.
Hard drives with rpm from 10 to 15 thousand per minute have established themselves as the highest-speed mechanical drives. However, with high performance, there was a huge risk of data loss associated with the catastrophic unreliability of the design. The fact is that such high revolutions can lead the device to a state of overheating, which will incur irreversible data loss. Currently, such hard drives are rare, and they are very expensive.
Output
Spindle speed is the main indicator when choosing any mechanical drive. For this reason, for a desktop computer, an ideal option would be a hard drive with a rotation speed of 7200 rpm. It meets such requirements as high performance with reasonable power consumption and adequate heat dissipation.