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Hard Disks Are Normally of Three Types

There are three main types of hard disks: 1) Zip/Bernoulli disks which contain a single hard disk platter in a removable cartridge with capacities ranging from 8GB to 500GB. 2) Disk packs which contain multiple hard disk platters mounted on a central shaft that can be loaded and unloaded when needed. 3) Winchester disks which contain multiple sealed hard disk platters that cannot be separated from the disk drive. Winchester disks provide large storage capacities and were named after a rifle.

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114 views2 pages

Hard Disks Are Normally of Three Types

There are three main types of hard disks: 1) Zip/Bernoulli disks which contain a single hard disk platter in a removable cartridge with capacities ranging from 8GB to 500GB. 2) Disk packs which contain multiple hard disk platters mounted on a central shaft that can be loaded and unloaded when needed. 3) Winchester disks which contain multiple sealed hard disk platters that cannot be separated from the disk drive. Winchester disks provide large storage capacities and were named after a rifle.

Uploaded by

Bilal Khan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Types of hard disks:-

Hard disks are normally of three types:

i. Zip/ Bernoulli disk:-

It consists of a single hard disk platter encased in a plastic cartridge. Capacity of zip disk varies
from 8 GB to 500 GB or more. Its disk drive, called Zip drive, may be of portable or fixed type.
The fixed type is part of the computer system, connected to it permanently. Portable type can
be connected with the computer system for the duration of use. We can load and unload zip
disk easily into a zip drive.

ii. Disk Pack:-

It consists of multiple (two or more) hard disk platters mounted on a single central shaft. It disk
drive has separate read / write head for each usable disk surface. The disk packs can be loaded
and unloaded whenever required. When not in use the user stores a disk pack off-line in a
plastic case.

iii. Winchester disk:-

A Winchester disk consists of multiple hard disk platters mounted on a single central shaft. A
Winchester disk drive is of fixed type. That is, its hard disk platters and disk drive are sealed
together in a contamination free container and cannot be separated from each other.
Winchester disks have large storage capacity. Winchester disks were name d after the 30-30
Winchester rifle because the early Winchester disk systems had two 30 MB disks.

Optical Disks:-

An optical-disk storage system consists of a metallic or plastic disk coated with a highly
reflective material. It uses laser beam technology for reading/ writing of data from/to disk
surface. Modern computer systems use optical disks extensively as a random access medium.

Storage organization

Unlike magnetic disks having several concentric tracks an optical disk has one long track starting
at the outer edge and spiralling inward to the centre. Spiral track is ideal for reading large
blocks of sequential data such as audio or video. The drive slows down the disk’s rotation speed
towards the edges of disk whereas it speed up the disk rotation towards the center of the disk.

Access Mechanism
An optical disk drive uses laser beam technology for reading/writing of data to/ from an optical
disk surface. It has two laser beam sources. It uses one laser beam to write data by etching pits
on disk surface and another laser beam to read data from light-sensitive disk surface. To write
data it turns the laser beam ON and OFF at a varying rate due to which tiny pits are burnt into
the metal coating of disk surface. To read data it focuses the less powerful laser beam on disk
surface. The reflected patterns are converted into signals of binary 1’s and 0’s by a sensor.

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