Features of an external hard drive

Computers have become a very common thing in the present age. Today, even a small shop will have a computer wherein the shopkeeper will enter all accounting entries and maintain stock of his goods. Bigger business houses cannot survive without the computer. They use it to store loads of data and information. A computer has an internal hard drive wherein all the data is stored.

An external hard drive is a hard drive that is separate from the computer system and saves data of the computer. A hard drive is essential for any computer to store the operating system, software and loads of data. Generally, there is an internal drive but these days, external drives are also required.

There are lot of security threats to the computer from different viruses. Hence it is wise to save all your important data on the external hard drive so that in case the internal hard drive is corrupted by viruses, data stored on the external hard drive acts as a backup.

All the important and confidential data should be stored on an external drive. The external hard drive is a small piece of equipment other than the main computer and can be connected to the computer with the help of a cable. This cable enables the computer to take data from the external drive through interfaces like the USB and Fire Wire.

The external hard drive is used to save sensitive and confidential information, songs and movies, photographs and other data. It can be easily carried and can be connected to the computer by plugging it into the USB port.

Hard drives can be availed in two formats, namely SATA (Serial Advanced Technology) which is fast and IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics). SATA drives are very fast as compared to IDE hard drives.

The external hard drive consists of the following:-

1.)   Platters

2.)   Spindles

3.)   Spindle Motor

4.)   Read/Write Head

5.)   Head Actuator

The Platters in the external hard drive store all the data. They are made of either glass or ceramic. With more platters on an external drive, more data can be stored on it. The Spindles Motor that is set in the Spindle spins the Platter while the Read/Write Head does the work of reading and writing data to the Platter. Every platter has a read/write head. All these heads are attached to a single Head Actuator.

Apart from acting as a backup to store office data, external hard drive can be used to store data that requires a lot of space. One can store songs in it. People even save movies on it and view them later in their free time. They do not need to carry CDs with them. They can easily store these small external hard drives in their bags and use them whenever required by just plugging them into their computer or laptops. While working in the office, at times, you may have to deal with very sensitive and confidential information. Such data can be stored on your external drive rather than on the computer to secure secrecy. In this, manner, the external hard drive has become a very handy tool to save loads of data and information.