How do hard disk drives (HDDs) work? Anatomy of an HDDĪn HDD has disc-like objects that are called “platters.” Platters are where the data is stored using an electrical charge. Today, by comparison, an HDD that fits easily in a desktop computer can have upwards of 18 terabytes worth of storage. HDDs started as massive, room-filling devices with a capacity of about 3.75 megabytes.
The speed that the drive reads and writes this data is solely dependent on the drive itself. Operating systems (OS) tell the HDD to read and write data as needed by programs. An HDD is a “non-volatile” storage drive, which means it can retain the stored data even when no power is supplied to the device. What are HDDs and SDDs, and how are these types of storage similar and different? What is a hard disk drive (HDD)?Ī hard drive or hard disk drive (HDD) is a type of data storage device that is used in laptops and desktop computers.
