A HARD DRIVE

The PCs have moved from being pure computing devices for developers to
entertainment and Internet browsing machines. Today, an average computer user
stores graphics, music, movies, downloads, besides documents and spreadsheets.
With latest operating systems and applications occupying up to 800 MB, 2 GB hard
disk drives, which used to be the norm sometime ago, are simply not enough.

Fortunately, advances in disk storage technology have kept pace with the
increasingly bloated sizes of applications and increasing requirements of users. Today
a 20 GB hard disk can be bought for approximately the same price that a 2 GB drive
sold a year ago, and it is not uncommon to find users opting for high-capacity devices
even for home use. In fact, it makes more sense to buy higher capacity hard disks,
especially when you consider the fact that the price difference between, say, a 20 GB
drive and a 10 GB drive is negligible when compared to the increased capacity that you
are getting.

Hard disks are also a vital part of servers, where speed, reliability, and capacity
assume a totally new meaning altogether. File servers, Web servers and data mining
applications, which are running mission critical tasks, can even have multiple hard
drives and handle multiple users at the same time.

Therefore, depending on the segment for which hard disks are used, there can
be two broad classifications of hard drives—IDE and SCSI.

The former is generally used by all desktop users, while the latter serves the
server market. Though, both IDE and SCSI can have different sub-categorisations, (see
‘The hard disk interface’), the objective of this test is to identify the best performer and
the best value hard disk drives for general home and office use, and also for high-end
use. With high-capacity hard disks now becoming fairly common even with home
users, we have not divided hard drives according to capacity, but according to the
interface.

To help you make your choice between IDE and SCSI, here’s a little guide…

Selecting the right drive

Selecting the right hard drive for your system involves two basic principles, which apply
to all other computer components as well-the purpose for which it is required, and the
cost of implementation.

Generally speaking, try to strike a balance between performance, capacity and

cost. SCSI drives are generally much faster than IDE drives, but are also much more
expensive in comparison.

An extra expense involved in SCSI drives is the cost of the SCSI controller card,
which usually has to be bought separately. Though some high-end motherboards do
have a SCSI controller onboard, these motherboards are much more expensive. In case
of IDE drives, the IDE controller is built-in with the motherboard itself.

Performance of a hard disk depends greatly on its rotational speed and the
amount of cache it has. Generally speaking, the faster the rotational speed and greater
the cache, the faster is the speed of the hard disk.

(Diagram)
 Pay careful attention to a drive’s specifications to determine the above
parameters. Of course, these specifications also have an effect on the cost of the hard
disk.

IDE drives are most suited for desktops and mobile PCs, since it is the least
expensive to implement. Using a SCSI drive in such an environment will not result in a
performance advantage at all. IDE is also a good choice if you don’t need to use more
than four IDE devices together.

SCSI drives are a good choice for high-end servers and in a multi-user
environment where performance is a key issue. You can make full use of SCSI
specifications, and connect as many as 16 devices (including the SCSI controller) on a
single cable.

The hard disk interface

The drive interface is the language or protocol a drive uses to communicate with a host
computer or network. These can be of the following types:

IDE and ATA: The IDE, or Integrated Drive Electronics integrated Drive Electronics
interface, developed in 1988, was an attempt to consolidate all of the different non-
SCSI drives at that time to a standard interface. IDE and ATA (Advanced Technology
Attachment) mean one and the same ting—basically, a disk drive implementation
designed to integrate the controller on to the drive itself, thereby reducing interface
costs and making firmware implementations easier. IDE as an interface had certain
limitations. Disks larger than 528 MB could not be accessed and data was delivered on
an ISA bus, resulting in low transfer rates. These limitations were overcome in EIDE or
Enhanced IDE. In this implementation, data is delivered on a PCI bus and at the same
time, EIDE also supports larger disk sizes.

PIO: PIO, or Programmed Input/Output, is a method of moving data between devices

in a computer, in which all the information must pass through the processor. The
ATA/IDE standard specifies three PIO data transfer rates, namely Mode 0 at 3.3 MBps,
Mode 1 at 5.2 MBps, and Mode 3 at 8.3 MBps.

The newer ATA-2 standard specifies two higher data transfer rates—Mode 3 at
11.1 MBps and Mode 4 at 16.6 MBps.

Direct Memory Access: DMA is the ability of an I/O subsystem to transfer data to
and from a memory subsystem without processor intervention.

Ultra ATA/33: Ultra ATA/33 or Ultra DMA/33 is a protocol for transferring data
between a hard disk drive through the system bus to the RAM. The Ultra DMA/33
protocol transfers data in burst mode at a rate of 33.3 MBps, twice as fast as the
previous DMA interface.

Ultra ATA/66: Most of the hard disks available today are ATA/66 complaint. These
are also backward compatible with older PIO and Ultra ATA/33 drives. The
requirements for achieving Ultra ATA/66 performance from these new drives is an
ATA/66 capable motherboard or IDE controller card and an 80-conductor IDE cable
instead of the usual 40-pin one. Ultra ATA/66 (also referred to as Ultra DMA/66 or
Fast ATA-2) allows for a maximum burst transfer rate of 66.6 MBps, double the
maximum of Ultra ATA/33.
PIO Modes and their specifications
Mode Specification Cycle time (ns) Max. data Cable
transfer rate
(MBps)
PIO Mode 0 ATA 600 3.3 40-way
PIO Mode 1 ATA 383 5.2 40-way
PIO Mode 2 ATA 240 8.3 40-way
PIO Mode 3 ATA-2 180 11.1 40-way
PIO Mode 4 ATA-2 1301 6.6 40-way
Ultra DMA/33 Ultra ATA 60 33 40-way
Ultra DMA/66 Ultra ATA/66 30 66 80-way

SCSI: Pronounced ‘scuzzy’, SCSI stands for Small Computer System Interface. SCSI,
like EIDE, is a bus that controls the flow of data (I/O) between the computer’s
processor and its peripherals, the most common being the hard drive. Unlike EIDE,
SCSI requires an interface or host controller to connect it to a PC’s PCI or ISA bus.

SCSI’s most obvious advantage is the number of devices it can control. Whereas
IDE interfaces are restricted to two disk drives, and EIDE interfaces to four devices,
which can include hard disks and CD-ROM drives a SCSI controller can handle up to
15 devices.

After the first SCSI standard, SCSI01, which was formulated in 1986, the SCSI
interface has evolved to a great extent over the last few years into numerous variations.

The various types differ from each other in several ways, the most important
being cable length limitations and maximum speed.

Fibre Channel: Fibre channel is a high-speed interface designed for multiple disk
drive storage systems. Fibre Channel drives can be installed or removed while the host
system is operational. This interface can provide a maximum bandwidth of 100 MBps
and can support up to 126 devices.

Types of SCSI and their specifications

SCSI version Signalling Bus width Max. data Max. no. of Max. Cable
rate (MHz) (bits) transfer rate devices length (m)
(MBps) supported
SCSI-1 5 8 5 7 6
SCSI-2 5 8 5 7 6
Wide SCSI 5 16 10 15 6
Fast SCSI 10 8 10 7 6
Fast Wide 10 16 20 15 6
SCSI
Ultra SCSI 20 8 20 7 1.5
Ultra SCSI-2 20 16 40 7 12
Ultra2 SCSI 40 16 80 15 12
Ultra 160 80 16 160 15 12
SCSI

Serial ATA: Serial ATA or Serial IDE is all set to replace the parallel IDE interface used
currently. The new standard is a point-to-point protocol that connects each drive
directly to the IDE controller, and will provide a bandwidth of 150 MBps.
 Inside the Hard Disk
A hard disk is a precise, electronic magnetic device and has numerous
components inside, which work in perfect harmony to ensure proper data storage
and retrieval. Here’s what you’ll find inside

Platters: Made of glass substrate or an aluminium alloy, platters are magnetically

coated disks that store data. Files are stored as magnetically encoded areas on the
platters. A single file may be scattered among several areas on different platters. The
greater the number of platters, the grater the hard disk capacity; through it also
depends on the areal density of the platters. The platters spin at several thousand
revolutions per minute (RPM), driven by an electric motor. 5,4000 RPM, 7,200 RPM
and 10,000 RPM drives are commonly available today.

Actuator Arms: Attached to the actuator head at one end, the arms move the
read/write heads across the platters to read or write data.

Head Actuator: The actuator moves the actuator arms across the platters in order to
precisely align the read-write heads with a specific track and sector. The closer the
information packed on the platter, the harder it is for the actuator to align the heads
precisely. Speed of the actuator directly relates to the access speed of the hard disk.

Spindle: The component that is responsible for spinning the platters at a constant
speed. A motor is built into the spindle or mounted directly below it, which is
sometimes even visible from outside.

Read-write heads: These are attached to the ends of the actuator arms and are
located on both the top and underside of each hard disk platter. The read/write heads
are positioned at a distance of three millionths of an inch from the platters, and are
responsible for reading and writing data. The heads write the data to the platters by
aligning the magnetic fields of particles on the platter surface. Data is read by
detecting the polarities of the particles.

Logic Card: The printed circuit board at the bottom of the hard disk, the logic card,
contains a microprocessor and memory. The logic card is responsible for controlling
the hard drive including the spindle, actuator, cache memory, read-write operations,
power management and so on. It receives commands via the hard drive’s controller
that is driven by the operating system. When the computer makes a request for
information from the hard drive, the logic card processes it and translates it into
voltage fluctuations that force the actuator to move its arms across the platters.