The document discusses storage devices, including the anatomy of hard disk drives and solid state drives. Regarding hard disk drives, it describes their composition of platters, spindle, armature, and heads. It explains tracks and sectors, and notes faster spin rates enable faster read/write speeds. It also covers traditional interfaces like PATA and newer interfaces like SATA. For solid state drives, it notes they have no moving parts and instead use flash memory, providing faster access times than hard drives though at a higher cost per gigabyte.

1. Storage devices II.

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Instructor, PACE-IT Program – Edmonds Community College
Areas of Expertise Industry Certifications
 PC Hardware
 Network Administration
 IT Project Management
 Network Design
 User Training
 IT Troubleshooting
Qualifications Summary
Education
 M.B.A., IT Management, Western Governor’s University
 B.S., IT Security, Western Governor’s University
Entrepreneur, executive leader, and proven manger
with 10+ years of experience turning complex issues
into efficient and effective solutions.
Strengths include developing and mentoring diverse
workforces, improving processes, analyzing
business needs and creating the solutions
required— with a focus on technology.

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PACE-IT
– The anatomy of a hard disk drive.
– Traditional hard disk drives.
– Solid state drives.

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Storage devices II.

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Storage devices II.
– Anatomy of a hard disk drive (hdd).
» Hdds are composed of various components including:
• Multiple metal disks that are called platters, that are
held by a spindle (which rotates the platters).
• The armature moves the read head(s) across the
platters to read and write data to the drive.
– Getting a little deeper.
» The platters are logically broken up into tracks (think
traffic lanes) on which data is electromagnetically laid
down.
» Tracks are logically broken up into sectors (think
addresses) in order for a PC to know where the data is
located.
– Spin rates.
» The faster the platters spin, the faster the drive can read
and write data.
» Common spin rates are: 5,400 rpm, 7,200 rpm, 10,000
rpm, and 15,000 rpm.

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Storage devices II.

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Storage devices II.
– PATA (Parallel AT Attachment).
» Could use either the Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) or
Extended Integrated Drive Electronics (EIDE) interface on
the motherboard.
» The connection at the motherboard was a 40 pin
connection.
» If the motherboard only supported IDE, a 40 wire 40 pin
ribbon cable was used to connect the hdd to the
motherboard.
» If the motherboard supported EIDE, a 80 wire 40 pin ribbon
cable was used and higher transfer speeds were achieved.
» Maximum speed (transfer rate) of PATA was 133 MBps.
» Power for the drive was supplied by the power supply
through a 4 pin Molex plug.
» Used a master/slave relationship to determine which hdd
was the bootable device when multiple hdds were present.
» Master/slave status could be set by jumpers on the back of
the hdd.
» If cable select was chosen, then the position on cable
determined if the drive was master or slave.

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Storage devices II.
– SATA (Serial AT Attachment).
» Can be used with traditional hdds or with solid state
drives.
» A newer interface standard that achieves much higher
transfer rates.
• SATA 1.0 = 150 MBps or 1.5 Gbps.
• SATA 2.0 = 300 MBps or 3.0 Gbps.
• SATA 3.0 = 600 MBps or 6.0 Gbps.
» Boot priority is no longer established at the drive but in
BIOS.
» The SATA interface uses an L shaped connector with a 7
wire cable, and power is supplied by a 15 pin 5 wire
cable.
» All SATA drives are “hot swappable,” meaning that the
PC and device do not need to be powered down in order
to remove one drive and put in a new drive (of limited
value when the SATA drive is internal).

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Storage devices II.

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Storage devices II.
– SSD (Solid state drive).
» Different construction altogether; there are no moving
parts.
» They use arrays of flash type memory instead of platters.
» They have faster response times than the traditional hdd.
» When used internally, they utilize the SATA connections.
» When used externally, the connection type can vary.
» While faster (and quieter and cooler), the price per gigabit
of storage is much higher than with a traditional hdd.
– When is an SSD not a SSD?
» CompactFlash (CF): can hold up to 128 GB of data.
» Secure Digital (SD): the current max is two TB of data.
» xD: older standard used in digital cameras.
» USB flash drives also fall into the SSD but not really
category.

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Storage devices II.
Composed of platters, which are rotated by the spindle. The armature
moves the head(s) across the platters to read and write to the disk. The
platters are logically broken up into tracks, and the tracks are broken up into
sectors. The faster the spin rate, the faster the drive, but also the more
expensive it is.
Topic
Anatomy of a hard disk drive.
Summary
PATA drives use either the IDE or EIDE motherboard interface. IDE uses a
40 wire 40 pin ribbon cable and EIDE uses an 80 wire 40 pin ribbon cable.
Max transfer rate was 133 MBps. SATA drives use a 7 pin 7 wire
connection to the motherboard. Max transfer rate is 6.0 Gbps.
Traditional hard disk drives.
No moving parts means that SSDs are faster than traditional hdds. Data is
stored electromagnetically in flash type memory modules. SSDs use arrays
of these modules for storage. When used internally, SSDs use the SATA
connections that are available. Overall, better performers than hdds, but are
also much more expensive.
Solid state drives.

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THANK YOU

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