Information About Laptop Hard Drives
Executive Summary of Laptop Hard Drives By David Urmann and Wasim Ahmad
Laptop hard drives act as the main storage of this portable computer. Laptops with lower specs might not work well with a very big capacity storage. Some computers also are picky with brands. There are two kinds of laptop hard drives: the Internal Laptop Hard Drives and the external laptop hard drives.
The internal laptop hard drive is installed inside the device. It is in the laptop's dedicated hard drive slot. Its normal storage capacity ranges from 20 GB to 120 GB. The common transfer rate of the data is 100 MBps. The most common brands for internal hard drive are Seagate, CMS and Toshiba.
The external laptop hard drive is a stand-alone. This device has USB plug that can be connected to the laptop's USB port or the FireWire port. The normal storage ranges from 40 GB to 80 GB. The external laptop hard drive should have a big capacity so that you can store more data.
There are also two speed options for you to choose when buying the external laptop hard drive. When talking of size and speeds, the standard for laptop drives is 2.5 inches. The higher the rpm, the faster it opens.
There are two common interfaces: the Parallel -ATA (PATA) and the Serial-ATA. The standard capacity of a laptop is up to 160 GB. This depends on your laptop model.
5 Things to Know About Laptop Hard Drives
By Gary Hendricks
If you own a laptop, it might be useful for you to learn about the hard drive in the machine. The reason is that many hard drives might need to be upgraded for increased speed or capacity, or they might fail at some point.
In this article, we will explore 5 things you need to know about laptop hard drives so that you can upgrade or replace your hard drive if there is ever a need. Remember, laptop hard drives are more expensive than desktop units so you need to consider carefully before purchasing one.
1. Small Physical Size
Laptop hard drives are obviously smaller than their desktop counterparts. This is needed for mobility and you usually find laptop hard drives of thicknesses around 10 to 12 mm. That is extremely thin and suits lightweight and portable laptop models.
The smaller size reduces the capacity of laptop hard drives as well (see Point 3 below).
2. Lower Disk Speeds
Now, how does laptop hard drive speed measure up? Well, compared to their desktop and enterprise counterparts, laptop hard drives tend to be slower. You will usually find that a mobile hard drive spins at 5,400 rpm (although others spin with 7,200 rpm).
3. Hard Drive Capacity
Typical laptop hard drive capacities these days come at 100 to 200 GB. That's a lot of storage space compared to the days when you could only squeeze maybe 20 GB in laptop hard drive. Interestingly, Samsung has just released a 500 GB hard disk drive for laptops. That is amazing storage that you usually only get in desktops. Things are clearly progressing in the laptop world.
4.
An important trend in laptop hard drives is the increasing use of solid state drives. What is a solid state drive? Well, a solid state storage device is like the thing that stores the music in your iPod nano or pen drive. It has no moving parts like a traditional hard drive, and is hence not subjected to damage due to jumps and shocks. Technology has progressed to the point where solid state drives are increasingly more popular and also more affordable. Some examples of laptops with solid state technology options are the Apple MacBook Air, the ASUS Eee PC and the Toshiba Portege R500.
5. Shock-Resistant Technology
One of the more recent innovations in laptop hard drives is that of shock-resistant technology. If you own an Lenovo ThinkPad, you will notice that there is an icon on the lower right corner of your screen that changes when you suddenly move the laptop.
Now, there's an accelerometer inside the laptop which monitors any sudden changes in motion. If the laptop detects it, it will instantly park the heads on the hard disk to prevent them from corrupting data. Ingenious idea, huh?
Conclusion
I hope the above has given you some good insight into laptop hard drives and their features. The next time you need to upgrade your laptop hard drive, keep the above points in mind - they will help you make a better purchase decision. So until next time, good luck and happy computing!

