Let’s talk about Hard Drives, what do hard drives do?
Let’s talk about Hard Drives, what do hard drives do?
Well, Hard drives (sometimes abbreviated as a hard drive, HD, or HDD) read and write data, they store data we want to use over and over again like your operating system, whether it be Windows or Mac, and keep all your other data like documents, music and photos. That’s their job.
A hard drive is also required for the installation of any programs or other files you want to keep on your computer. When downloading files to your computer, they are permanently stored on your hard drive until they are moved or uninstalled.
What about SSD (solid-state drive) well they do the same job as an HDD only faster! HDDs are slower than SSDs when reading and writing data, but offer greater storage capacity for the price.
Most new computers laptops or desktop computers, Apple Mac or Windows PC now have SSD’s as their primary storage device. If they don’t you should be asking why.
Older computers can get a new lease of life by being retrofitted with an SSD, so if your computer is slow and sluggish then this might be a great option to extend the life of your old computer or laptop.
What about when things go wrong?
If your HDD or SSD fails then you will most likely lose your data (documents, music and precious photos). What can you do? Well always have a backup if it’s not cloud-based like Onedrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud and the like or have an external backup drive that you can do regular backups on, you are going to be in some trouble. If the drive has not completely failed there are still options to get your data back.
Maybe your computer has failed? Well again there are options to get your data back, contact your computer tech for advice.
At Geek Monkey even when your computer has died, all your data like documents and photos of kids, pets, old friends & parents can still often be retrieved, so give us a call and we can give you some advice on getting back your data.
Wayne – Geek Monkey Computers Woolgoolga 0490 776 643