disk drive
computer hardware that reads and writes to and from a disk or diskette | ||||
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Disk drive definition was found in categories: Computer & Internet(3) Language, Idioms & Slang(2) Entertainment & Music(1) Encyclopedia(1)
Disk drive Definition from Computer & Internet Dictionaries & Glossaries
| FOLDOC |
disk drive
<hardware, storage> (Or "hard disk drive", "hard drive", "floppy disk drive", "floppy drive") A peripheral device that reads and writes hard disks or floppy disks. The drive contains a motor to rotate the disk at a constant rate and one or more read/write heads which are positioned over the desired track by a servo mechanism. It also contains the electronics to amplify the signals from the heads to normal digital logic levels and vice versa.
In order for a disk drive to start to read or write a given location a read/write head must be positioned radially over the right track and rotationally over the start of the right sector.
Radial motion is known as "seeking" and it is this which causes most of the intermittent noise heard during disk activity. There is usually one head for each disk surface and all heads move together. The set of locations which are accessible with the heads in a given radial position are known as a "cylinder". The "seek time" is the time taken to seek to a different cylinder.
The disk is constantly rotating (except for some floppy disk drives where the motor is switched off between accesses to reduce wear and power consumption) so positioning the heads over the right sector is simply a matter of waiting until it arrives under the head. With a single set of heads this "rotational latency" will be on average half a revolution but some big drives have multiple sets of heads spaced at equal angles around the disk.
If seeking and rotation are independent, access time is seek time + rotational latency. When accessing multiple tracks sequentially, data is sometimes arranged so that by the time the seek from one track to the next has finished, the disk has rotated just enough to begin accessing the next track.
See also sector interleave.
The disks may be removable disks; floppy disks always are, removable hard disks were common on mainframes and minicomputers but less so on microcomputers until the mid 1990s(?) with products like the Zip Drive.
A CD-ROM drive is not usually referred to as a disk drive.
Two common interfaces for disk drives (and other devices) are SCSI and IDE. ST506 used to be common in microcomputers (in the 1980s?).
(1997-04-15)
<hardware, storage> (Or "hard disk drive", "hard drive", "floppy disk drive", "floppy drive") A peripheral device that reads and writes hard disks or floppy disks. The drive contains a motor to rotate the disk at a constant rate and one or more read/write heads which are positioned over the desired track by a servo mechanism. It also contains the electronics to amplify the signals from the heads to normal digital logic levels and vice versa.
In order for a disk drive to start to read or write a given location a read/write head must be positioned radially over the right track and rotationally over the start of the right sector.
Radial motion is known as "seeking" and it is this which causes most of the intermittent noise heard during disk activity. There is usually one head for each disk surface and all heads move together. The set of locations which are accessible with the heads in a given radial position are known as a "cylinder". The "seek time" is the time taken to seek to a different cylinder.
The disk is constantly rotating (except for some floppy disk drives where the motor is switched off between accesses to reduce wear and power consumption) so positioning the heads over the right sector is simply a matter of waiting until it arrives under the head. With a single set of heads this "rotational latency" will be on average half a revolution but some big drives have multiple sets of heads spaced at equal angles around the disk.
If seeking and rotation are independent, access time is seek time + rotational latency. When accessing multiple tracks sequentially, data is sometimes arranged so that by the time the seek from one track to the next has finished, the disk has rotated just enough to begin accessing the next track.
See also sector interleave.
The disks may be removable disks; floppy disks always are, removable hard disks were common on mainframes and minicomputers but less so on microcomputers until the mid 1990s(?) with products like the Zip Drive.
A CD-ROM drive is not usually referred to as a disk drive.
Two common interfaces for disk drives (and other devices) are SCSI and IDE. ST506 used to be common in microcomputers (in the 1980s?).
(1997-04-15)
| A Glossary of Internet & PC Terminology |
Disk Drive
The hardware which performs the basic operations on the hard disk - including rotating the disk & reading/writing data to the disk.
The hardware which performs the basic operations on the hard disk - including rotating the disk & reading/writing data to the disk.
| Multimedia Glossary |
disk drive
a device that you put a floppy disk into, it retrieves data from a floppy or hard disk and places data on a disk for storage
a device that you put a floppy disk into, it retrieves data from a floppy or hard disk and places data on a disk for storage
Disk drive Definition from Language, Idioms & Slang Dictionaries & Glossaries
| WordNet 2.0 |
disk drive
Noun
1. computer hardware that holds and spins a magnetic or optical disk and reads and writes information on it
(synonym) disc drive, hard drive, Winchester drive
(hypernym) drive
(part-meronym) hard disc, hard disk, fixed disk
(classification) computer science, computing
Noun
1. computer hardware that holds and spins a magnetic or optical disk and reads and writes information on it
(synonym) disc drive, hard drive, Winchester drive
(hypernym) drive
(part-meronym) hard disc, hard disk, fixed disk
(classification) computer science, computing
| hEnglish - advanced version |
disk drive
disk drive
n : (computer science) computer hardware that holds and spins a magnetic or optical disk and reads and writes information on it [syn: disc drive, hard drive, winchester drive]
disk drive
n : (computer science) computer hardware that holds and spins a magnetic or optical disk and reads and writes information on it [syn: disc drive, hard drive, winchester drive]
Disk drive Definition from Entertainment & Music Dictionaries & Glossaries
| English to Federation-Standard Golic Vulcan |
Disk drive
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Disk drive Definition from Encyclopedia Dictionaries & Glossaries
| Wikipedia English - The Free Encyclopedia |
Disc drive
Disc Drive or Disc drive might refer to:
- Disk drive is a form of data storage for computers
- DiscDrive is the afternoon show on CBC Radio Two
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Disk storage
Disk storage is a general category of a computer storage mechanisms, in which data is recorded on planar, round and rotating surfaces (disks, discs, or platters). A disk drive is a peripheral device used to collect information from. Main implementations are hard disks, floppy disks and optical discs. Nowadays the term disk storage almost exclusively refers to hard disk storage.
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