When considering the actual "real world" daily use of hard disks, and
contemplating a hard disk purchase, PC users often ask three key questions:
- Is this hard disk fast?
- Is this hard disk well manufactured?
- Is this hard disk going to last?
These questions are answered by considering carefully the three words that appear in
the title of this page. Hard disk performance is important because hard disks are one of
the slowest internal PC components, and therefore often limit the performance of the
system as a whole. Quality and reliability are critical with hard disks, because
they are where your data resides! No other PC component can lead so readily to disaster if
it fails.
This section is quite large, and it has to be. Why? Because these matters are so
crucial, and unfortunately, few of the "big players" in the industry do a good
enough job of educating hard disk users about their products. Here I am talking especially
about those who make hard disks, whole PCs and operating systems. Hard disks continue to
be sold by flashing appetizing numbers on boxes, placed there to entice consumers who
can't easily understand where they fit into the big picture of overall performance.
Benchmarks are tossed around the Internet with little knowledge and even less scientific
control. And hard disk quality and reliability remain mysteries to many users, who buy
whatever seems fast and cheap, and simply hope for the best.
It's my hope that after reading this section you will be in a much better position to
evaluate the numbers and claims made by hard disk manufacturers and others. There are
three major subsections contained here. The first takes a very detailed look at hard disk performance, discussing different ways that
performance can be assessed, common performance specifications, ways of measuring
performance, and also describing the various factors inside and outside the hard disk that
affect its speed. The second looks at hard disk quality and
reliability issues in detail, including a look at warranty issues and features being
put into hard disks to improve their reliability. The third major subsection is devoted to
the discussion of Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks, or RAID.
The use of disk arrays is increasing dramatically as the PC world seeks to improve
performance, expand storage capacity, and improve the reliability of the storage
subsystem.
Next: Hard Disk
Performance
