Device mass storage

How to choose a device mass storage equipment

Internal hard drive: mass storage device

The choice between an 80 GB hard drive and 200 GB really depends on your needs and budget. The amount of data you are planning to store into the device mass storage and the amount of programs installed in your computer will guide your choice.

For example : if you have a home computer just for surfing the web and run some basic software, and do not have lots of data to backup; you can easily install a second 80 GB internal hard drive and store all your important data in it.

Now if you plan to run gaming software and/or graphic design software, and need to backup pictures and graphic files you definitely need at least a 200 GB hard drive.


External hard drive: mass storage device

Backing up data is an obligation in the IT field. Losing important and valuable data can be catastrophic.External hard drives are specially design for backup purposes. External hard drive offers great flexibility to store music, videos, graphics and all kind of files.

Usually they are equipped with USB ports that make them faster and plug and play (PnP). You just have to plug them in the USB port of your computer just like you plug a headset for example. With the external hard drive you can bring your data where ever you go.

Hard drive is the most important device mass storage in the computer. Any software you installed in your computer must be stored in the hard drive. Data are stored permanently in the hard drive.

It is important to make a clear distinction between the physical storage device which is the hardware itself and the logical divisions or partition you can create on it.

A physical disk is a single independent drive unit, usually a hard disk drive. Technically, the term disk refers to the magnetically coated platters inside the drive unit. Usually a drive has a stack of platters which form the hard disk inside the hard drive.

Before data are stored into the disks, they have to be partition first. A partition is an area of space on a disk that functions as a physical separate unit of storage. You can create several partitions on a physical disk. For example you can create one partition for the Operating system (like windows), one for the programs you want to install (like MS office, gaming software……) and one for your files. Partitioning the disk into multiple partitions improves the performance of your drive.