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Hard disks

One or more hard disks are found in the hard drive which is usually housed inside a computer. Each drive is built into a sealed unit to prevent contamination by dust and moisture.

Advantages over floppy disks :

  • Access to data is faster than from floppy disks.
  • Hard discs store more data than floppy disks. (40 Gb drives are now common).
  • They are more reliable than floppy disks as they have more protection from dirt.

 
One disadvantage of a hard disc over floppy disk is that it is not portable - you cannot carry it round and use it on different computers.

 

 The read-write head floats so close to the disk that a small speck of dust would ruin the disk. This is why the drives are sealed.
Exercise : Hard Disks
A hard drive is a sealed unit which contains one or more hard disks in a sealed case.

The advantages of a hard disk over a floppy disc are -

 (select only the correct answers)

Hard drives be easily used on two different computers.

 

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