Features
The general purpose of a hard drive is the type of devices for which it was originally intended.
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For PC. Hard drives designed for use with conventional consumer computers and laptops. At the same time, the possibility of installing an internal HDD (see "Performance") directly depends on the form factor (see the relevant paragraph), while external models are not subject to such restrictions — it is enough for them to have the appropriate connection connector. Also note that almost all external hard drives are designed specifically for PCs; making server models external is not technically justified.
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For the server. Hard drives designed for servers have increased speed and reliability, because they constantly have to receive and give large amounts of information. To ensure speed, they may provide an increased rotation speed (up to 15,000 rpm). Such drives are made only internal (see "Performance"), and, in addition to SATA, they can use other, more specific connection methods — for example,
SAS(see "Connection interfaces").
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For game console. Specialized hard drives designed for use with game consoles. They are made only external (see "Performance"), they are intended mainly for storing games — including saves and user settings profiles. The main difference between such devices and classic external HDDs is
...precisely the optimization for working with game consoles, including the availability of special software tools for improved integration. Many of these drives are originally designed for a specific model or family of set-top boxes.Data transfer rate
The speed of data transfer between the disk and client devices is determined by the type of drive, spindle speed, memory buffer size and connection connectors. The last parameter is the most important, since it is impossible to exceed the bandwidth of a particular interface.
Average search time
The time it takes for the hard disk mechanics to find random requested data to read. For each specific case, the search time is different, as it depends on the location of the data on the surface of the disk and the position of the read head, therefore, the average value is indicated in the characteristics of hard drives. The lower the average seek time, the faster the disk works, all other things being equal.
Shockproof
A parameter that determines the resistance of the hard drive to drops and shocks during operation (that is, in the on state). Shock resistance is measured in G — units of overload, 1 G corresponds to the usual force of gravity. The higher the G number, the more resistant the disc is to various kinds of concussions and the less likely it is to be damaged, say, in the event of a fall. This setting is especially important for external drives and drives used in laptops.
MTBF
Guaranteed (minimum) hard drive uptime. The longer the time between failures, the more durable and reliable the device. At the same time, we note that after this time, the drive will not necessarily fail immediately — most models remain operational even after the claimed resource has been exhausted, but the manufacturer does not give any guarantees here.
MTBF
Guaranteed (minimum) number of hard drive on-off cycles after which it will remain operational. The higher this number, the more reliable the drive.
