Hard Drive Technology

By: Jacques Dady Jean

 Objective of this presentation
• Understanding the Hard Disk Drive
(HDD)Technology
• The Functions of the HDD
• Difference between SATA and PATA Drive
• How to install Hard Disk Drive
• How to troubleshoot Hard Drive issues
• How to maintain Hard Drive
By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org
 Hard Disk Drive
• Traditional Hard
Drive Store Data
magnetically onto
spinning platters;
using a fast moving
actuator -arm with
read/write heads
• Primary data storage
in Desktop and laptop
computer
By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org
 Solid State Drive
• Solid State Drive uses
Read/Write Memory
to store data
• Has no moving part
• Produce no heat
• Last longer

By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org

 Drive Speed and Capacity
• 10000 and 15000 RPM,
– Standard for enthusiast and server computers
• 7200 RPM
– Standard for desktop computer
• Drive speed can be 5400
– Standard for portable computer
• Drive capacity is measure in GB (gigabyte) or in
TB(Terabyte)
• 1TB = 1024 GB
• 1GB = 1024 MB
• 1PB = 1Million GB, 1000 TB
 Types of Drive
• PATA
• SATA
• SCSI

By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org

 ATA, Advanced Technology
Attachment
• 2 styles of ATA drives
-Paralleled ATA(PATA) and Serial ATA (SATA)
• All PATA Drives use a Molex power
connector, lower speed PATA drives use a
40-pin ribbon cable and faster dives use a
80-wire cable called IDE or EIDE cable,
which stand for integrated Drive Electronics
• IDE cable is 18 inches long
 Hard Drive Jumper Setting
• Master
• Slave
• Single
 PATA Hard drive and optical
drive
• PATA drive
– Use IDE cable for Data

By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org

 IDE Cable
IDE Cable
18” long
Can support 2 drives

By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org

 SATA Drive
• SATA Drives uses the
same form factor as
PATA Drive
• Creates a Point – to-
point connection
between the SATA
devices (HDD and
Optical drives)

By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org

 SATA Cable
• SATA cable
– 1 meter long
– Support one drive
– Allow a better air flow
inside the case
– No jumper
configuration needed

By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org

 SATA Drive Installation
• No Jumper cable
• Primary Drive
• SATA Power Cable

By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org

 SCSI Drive
• (SCSI) Small
Computer System
Interface
• Faster that PATA and
SATA Drives
• Only choice if using
RAID (Redundant
Array of Independent
Disk)
By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org
 SCSI Host Adapter
• SCSI Host Adapter is also
called SCSI controller
• Provide the interface
between the SCSI chain
and the PC
• The SCSI chain is
connected to the SCSI
Host Adapter Internally or
Externally
 SCSI Ribbon
• Internal SCSI devices
connect to the host
adapter with a 68-pin
ribbon cable
• Daisy-chaining is the
process of connecting
a device directly to
another device.

By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org

 SCSI ID’s and Termination
• SCSI ID’s are used to differentiate devices
can be ranged between 0-15
– SCSI ID is a unique identifier
– SCSI Devices use jumper, dip switches or even
tiny dial to set ID
– The end of SCSI drive must be terminated

By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org

 Difference between HDD and SSD

• Traditional Hard Disk Drive

– Composed of individual disk
– Or platters
– Two tiny read/write heads service each platters
– HDD stores data in tiny magnets
– Actuator arms
– Stepper motor and voice coil

By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org

 Hard Disk Drive Review
• Drive Geometry
– Cylinders, heads and sectors combined (CHS),
defines a drive geometry

BIOS needs the CHS to talk to the drive.

By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org

Hard Disk Drive Operational Issues

• Slow because of times take to spin up for

the read/write head to retrieve data need
to load the OS
• Moving metal parts of the platter-based
drive use a lot of energy
• Produce heat and wear down over time.

By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org

 Solid State Drive
• Components
– Semi-conductors, transistors, and bubble
memory
– Use non-volatile memory chips to store data
– No moving metal
– Consume less energy
– Produce less heat
– Faster but more expensive
 ATA Technology Improvement
• ATA 1 – support only two drives attached
to one connector via a single cable, has a
capacity upto 504 MB
• ATA 2 – add LBA (logical block
addressing) that support larger drive .
• ATA2 add ATAPI Advance Technology
Attachment Paket Interface)
• ATA add support for a second controller .
By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org
 ATA Improvement (cont’ed)
• ATA3-Add S.M.A.R.T Self Monitoring Analysis
and Reporting Technology
• ATA4 –Add Ultra DMA mode making HDD
much faster. ATA4 defines 3 Ultra DMA mode: 0-
16 MBps, mode1- 25 MBps mode 2- 33.3MBps
• ATA5 - added DMA 3- 44.4 MBps and DMA
mode 4: 66.6 MBps
– Ultra DMA 4 add a new 80 wires cable

By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org

 ATA Improvement
• ATA 6- introduced Ultra DMA mode 5
kicking data transfer rate to 100MBps
• ATA7- introduced Ultra DMA mode 6
(ATA133) runs at speed 133 MBps called
Serial ATA or SATA.
• AHCI- Advanced Host Controller –This
Technology is supported by Windows Vista
and newer operating system
By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org
 INT 13 extension
• Allow drive capacity up to 137 GB

By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org

 Notes
• A system running INT13 extensions can
support upto a 137GB hard drive
• Each IDE controller support 2 Drives
• PATA Drives use master/slave jumper to
differentiate between the two drives
• If you connect the HDD incorrectly nothing
will be damaged or lost, there just would
not be any communication
By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org
 Notes (Con’t)
• If you install a drive that require a 80 wires on a
40 wires cable the drive will work fine but at a
lower speed
• The maximum length of an internal SATA cable
is 1 meter.
• The limit of how many SATA drives you can
install in a PC depends on how many ports on
your motherboard /host controller
• With a SATA bridge, you can install a PATA
drive on a SATA port
By: Jacques Dady Jean - www.mattapantech.org