Chapter 6

Storage - Hard Disk Drive

A+ Certification for PC Technician

Hard Disk
What is the role of the Hard Disk? What are the Major brands in the
It is Permanent Storage device in the Market?
PC. It is the computer’s Primary Quantum, Seagate, IBM, Fujitsu,
Storage Maxtor, Western Digital

How is the Hard Disk differ from other What is FRU?

storage device? Field Replaceable Unit. Device can be
replace in customer place. Hard Disk is
Storage Capacity and Speed.
considered a FRU.

How is Capacity measured?

Megabyte (MB) for older Hard disk
Gigabyte (GB) for newer hard disk

How is Hard Disk measured?

The speed of the hard disk are
measured in term of Data Access Time
(8 ms to 14 ms) and Platter Rotation
Speed (5400, 7200 and 10,000 rpm).

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Importance of the Hard Disk
How important is the Hard Disk to the PC?
 Performance: The speed at which the PC boots up and programs load is
directly related to hard disk speed. The hard disk's performance is also
critical when multitasking is being used or when processing large amounts of
data such as graphics work, editing sound and video, or working with
databases.
 Storage Capacity: A bigger hard disk can store more programs and data.
 Software Support: Newer software needs more space and faster hard
disks to load it efficiently.
 Reliability: Hard disk is the most important component. Hardware can be
replaced, but data cannot. A good quality hard disk, combined with smart
maintenance and backup habits, can help ensure that the nightmare of data
loss doesn't become part of your life.

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Hard Disk Physical Components
What are the major physical What is the Read/Write head use for?
components in the Hard Disk?
They are special electromagnetic
Platter read/write devices used to either
Spindle and spindle motor record information onto the disk or
Read/Write Head read information from it.
Logic Board
What is the function of the logic
What is a Platter? board?
Round, flat disks coated on both sides Controls the activity of the other
with a special media material designed components and communicates with the
to store information.
rest of the PC.

What is the function of spindle and the

motor?
The platters are mounted by cutting a
hole in the center and stacking them
onto a spindle. The platters rotate at
high speed, driven by a special spindle
motor connected to the spindle.

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Storing the Data
How does the Hard Disk organized to
store information?
Storing data in tracks and sectors on the
surface of platter.

What is Tracks?
Tracks are concentric circles, while
sectors are pie-shaped wedges on a track
A typical track is shown in yellow, while a
typical sector is shown in blue.

What is a Sector?
Contains a fixed number of bytes - for
example, 512.

What is a Cluster
Cluster is a group of sectors. The smallest
storage unit used to stored data.

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Hard Disk Preparation
How is the Hard Disk been prepared to What is High-level formatting?
accept Data? High-level formatting writes the file-
Hard Disk has to be: storage structures like the file allocation
Low level formatted and then High level table into the sectors. This process
formatted prepares the drive to hold files.

What is Low-level formatting? Who performs the High-level formatting?

This is when a drive establishes the tracks User
and sectors on the platter. The starting
and ending points of each sector are Which command is used perform the
written onto the platter. This process High-level formatting?
prepares the drive to hold blocks of bytes. Use DOS command, FORMAT
For example, FORMAT C:
Who performs the low-level
formatting?
Hard disk manufacturer

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Types of IDE/ATA Interface
What is Hard Disk Interface? What is EIDE?
The interface between the computer Current implementation is EIDE or
and the hard disk drive. Enhanced Integrated Device
Electronics. Also know as ATA-2.
Which are the 2 main categories of
Interface? What is the addition features of EIDE?
IDE and SCSI Supports hard disk greater than
528MB. Supports for CD-ROM, Tape
drive, etc.
What is IDE?
Integrated Device Electronics. The
drive controller is integrated into the
Hard Disk Drive. Also known as ATA
(Advanced Technology Attachment)

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Types of IDE/ATA Interface
What are the types of IDE/ATA Interfaces?

Standard Speed Description

IDE/ATA 2.1 – 8.3 mb/s First ANSI standard.
Limited to 528MB and supports 2 devices
Supports PIO and DMA transfer mode.
ATA-2 Up to 16 mb/s More than 528MB HDD.
Fast ATA Supports 4 IDE devices.
Supports PIO and DMA transfer mode.
ATA-3 Little speed Improve version of ATA-2
increase
Ultra ATA Up to 33.3 mb/s New DMA mode but supports slower PIO modes
Fast ATA-2
Ultra DMA
DMA/33
Ultra ATA/66 Up to 66.6 mb/s Uses special 80-pin cable that provides
Ultra DMA/66 additional ground lines.

ATA-100 Up to 100 mb/s Technology for newer drive

Uses 80-pin cable

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SCSI Technology
What does SCSI stands for? How many device can be connected?
Small Computer Systems Interface Up to 7 or 15 devices can be connected,
depending on the type SCSI card.
Why use SCSI instead of IDE?
An entirely different interface. It is How does each device being identified?
not a controller, like IDE, but a Each device is assigned an unique
separate I/O bus that is hooked to the number (LUN – logical unit number).
system bus via a host adapter Either 0 to 7 or 0 to 15. The SCSI
(expansion card). adapter normally takes 7 or 15.

How is SCSI devices supported in PC? What is the Priority?

Inserts a SCSI card (HOST ADAPTER), Lower the ID, lower the Priority.
into one of the expansion slots and
attaches SCSI devices to the card
Does SCSI need devices need to be
using the SCSI cable. Expansion slot
terminated?
can be ISA or PCI
Yes. The last device on each end the
SCSI chain must be terminated using
terminating resistor.

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SCSI Technology
How is LUN set? What does the term LVD means in
Using jumpers. Refer to picture below. SCSI?
Low Voltage Differential. Standard
defining the use of uses 3.3 volt, which
consumes less power, dissipates less
heat and is faster than HVD SCSI.

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SCSI Standards
What are the common SCSI standards? What is IEEE 1394?
8-bit Narrow SCSI and 16-bit Wide Know as Firewire. It is Serial SCSI. Do
SCSI. See table below. not need termination and ID.

What are the type of Cable used?

50-pin for Narrow SCSI and 68-pin for
Wide SCSI.
SCSI Interface Bus Transfer Rate Max No of No of Pins in
(MB/sec) Devices Connector
SCSI-1 (Regular SCSI) Narrow 5 8 25
SCSI-2 (Fast SCSI) Narrow 10 8 50
• Fast Wide SCSI Wide 20 16 68
SCSI-3 (Ultra SCSI) Narrow 20 8 50
• Wide Ultra SCSI Wide 40 16 68
• Ultra2 SCSI Narrow 40 8 50
• Wide Ultra2 SCSI Wide 80 16 68
• Ultra3 SCSI Narrow 80 8 68
• Wide Ultra3 SCSI Wide 160 16 68

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SCSI Connectors

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Choosing Between SCSI and EIDE HDD
What are the factors to consider in choosing SCSI or IDE HDD?

EIDE HDD SCSI HDD

Cost Cheaper Cost more

Performance Slower than SCSI Faster data transfer

Multi-tasking CPU can process data from CPU can work with multiple
one device at a time devices connected to SCSI

No of devices 2 devices per cable Up to 7 or 15 devices per

supported per host adapter card
adapter
Multi-device working No Yes
concurrently Only 1 device can work at Multiple device can work
one time. If HDD works, simultaneously.
CD-ROM must wait. Good for large amount of
data transfer.

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Other Types of HDD Interfaces

What are the other types of Interfaces available?

Interfaces Remarks
IEEE 1394 Faster that EIDE and SCSI
(Firewire) Up to 400Mbp/sec
Supported by Windows 98 and Windows 2000
Slow to adopt by Industry
Fiber Channel For high-end system that needs multiple hard disk.
Can connect up to 126 devices
Expansive

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Partition, MBR
What is Partitioning a Hard Disk? What is Master Boot Record?
Dividing it into logical volumes (C:, D: or MBR or partition table is created during
E:). It first things to do when setting partition. It is the very first sector of
up a new hard disk, because partitions the partition. It contains the
are one of the major disk structures information that describes logical disks.
that define how the disk is laid out.
What happen if MBR is damaged?
Does it involved the OS? DOS may not even recognize that your
No. disk exists. The partition sector
contains a program which is executed
every time the PC is powered up. This
program executes and reads the DOS
boot sector or other operating system
boot sector.

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Formatting the Hard Disk
What is Formatting? What is FAT (File Allocation Table)?
Creating of the OS Boot Sector, the It contains the location of each file and
FAT table and Root Directory. it indicates which location are free for
new file or file require more storage
spaces.
Is the OS involved?
Yes. Does each drive has a FAT?
Yes. Each drive has its own FAT. The
What is the OS Boot Record? FAT system for older versions of
Windows 95 is called FAT16, and the
Each drive has a boot sector which one for new versions of Windows 95
contains programs need to load the OSR2 and Windows 98 is called FAT32.
DOS system files.
What is Root Directory?
What happen when the Boot Record is Computer file system that is organized
damaged? as a hierarchy or tree. The root
Damage to this sector can make your directory is the directory that includes
all other directories. (Unlike a real tree,
disk appear to be unreadable. This
a tree file system has only one root)
sector is rewritten whenever you do a
"SYS" or a "FORMAT /S" to a disk.

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File Allocation Table (FAT)
What is FAT16? What is VFAT (Virtual File Allocation
Table)?
A FAT directory holds information such
as name, file size, date & time stamp, A protected-mode version of the FAT
file system, used by Windows 95. It is
the starting cluster number and the file
compatible with the FAT system, the
attributes like (archive, hidden, system main difference being support for long
etc.). filenames

When is FAT16 best use? What is FAT32?

On small 500mb drives because of the Implemented from Windows 95 SR2
cluster size. It is about 2% faster than onwards. It supports drives up to 2
FAT32. FAT performance drops off terabytes. FAT32 will not recognize
after 400mb's on up. FAT

Why is FAT32 a better choice?

What is the limit of FAT16?
It uses smaller clusters (e.g. 4k
Supports up to 2 GB partition clusters up to 8 gigs). Up to 16GB,
cluster size is 8KB; to 32GB, it's 16KB;
and for partitions of 32GB and greater,
the cluster size is 32KB

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Hard Disk Translation Modes
What is Hard Disk Translation Modes?
 Techniques used to overcome the HDD capacity limitation of 540MB. BIOS
cannot translate the structure of HDD beyond this capacity. CHS (cylinder,
head, sector) mode is used for HDD below 540MB, and in actual there is no
translation at all. The BIOS view the hard disk according to the geometry
presented by the hard disk.

What are the Translation Mode Used?

1. Extended CHS or Large mode
 504MB to 8.4GB
 Not popular
Old HDD
2. LBA (large block addressing)
 More than 504MB
 Automatically enable by BIOS
 HDD as a list of addressable sectors, NOT CHS

New HDD
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Data Transfer Mode
What the Data Transfer Mode used in HDD to speed up performance?

PIO Old methods 5 modes:

(Programmed I/O) CPU manages the transfer PIO mode 0 to 4 (fastest)

DMA and Bus DMA controller

Mastering DMA CPU is not involved
Not popular
Ultra DMA HDD BIOS controls data Highest transfer rates at
transfer 33, 44, 66 & 100 mb/s
Need HDD support
Need 80-pin IDE cable
Block mode Group multiple read or write
commands over the IDE/ATA
interface so that they can be
handled on a single interrupt
Activated in BIOS

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Optimizing the Hard Disk
What are the tasks needed to maintain a Hard Disk?

1. Fragmentation
 Using Disk Defragmenter to defragment the hard disk
 Should not be running any other programs
 Steps to perform Defragmentation
a) Start, Program
b) Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter

2. Scandisk
 Using Scandisk to repair cross-link and lost cluster
 Steps to perform Defragmentation
a) Start, Program
b) Accessories, System Tools, Scandisk

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Maintaining the Hard Disk
What are the 2 utilities provided by What is Scandisk?
Windows to maintain the Hard Disk? Scandisk is used to repair Cross-link
Disk Defragmenter files, lost Cluster and update Bad
Scandisk Sectors.

What is Disk Defragmenter? What are the steps to activate

Scandisk?
Remove disk fragmentation. Should not
be running any other programs in the a) Start, Program
background, especially with Anti-virus b) Accessories, System Tools,
or Screen Saver. Scandisk

What are the steps to activate Disk

Defragmenter?
a) Start, Program
b) Accessories, System Tools, Disk
Defragmenter

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Vcache
What is Vcache? How to control Vcache?
It is a Disk Cache. It is used to keep Use Notepad to open the full
already read files in memory after SYSTEM.INI in Windows folder. Locate
they're no longer in use.  If a file is and Change the Vcache section:
needed again it can be read from the  32 megs of ram:
Vcache (ram) rather than from the hard MinFileCache=2048/MaxFileCache=
drive. It replaces SMARTDRV disk 8192
cache.  64 megs of ram:
MinFileCache=2048/MaxFileCache=
What is the Problem face with Vcache? 16384
By default, Vcache grows as large as  128 megs of ram or more:
possible. If your PC has 64 megabytes MinFileCache=2048/MaxFileCache=
of RAM, Vcache will quickly take up 30 32768
to 40 megabytes of RAM. (The rest of
the memory probably will be claimed by
system functions, your browser and so
on.). That means any other programs
cannot possibly run

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