During the assembly of the computer you have to deal with a huge amount of information. The choice of components is influenced by many factors. But there are elements that remain unchanged in any case. For example, the capacity of the hard drive will not affect the choice of a video card, motherboard and other parts of the PC.
But it can affect the operation of the system. This is due to the fact that insufficient memory leads to lags and failures of various processes. Therefore, it is important to know what capacity the hard drive has.
Device
A hard disk, or hard drive, is a device that stores information and gives random access to it. It is based on magnetic recording. At the moment, this is the main drive in consumer systems. Although they are actively starting to change to faster devices - SSDs.
Characteristics
Hard disk capacity is one of its characteristics. It describes the amount of data that can be stored on a particular device. In addition to this parameter, the railway are characterized by the interface - the conditional-technical interaction of two devices. Modern models have received many interface modifications, so at this point it is important to pay attention when choosing.
Further, hard drives differ in physical size. Although it is unfair to say this at the moment, since from a certain moment most manufacturers adhere to a standardized form factor of 3.5 inches for desktop PCs and 2.5 for a laptop. The characteristics include indicators of spindle rotation, random access time, number of operations and energy consumption.
Capacity
Now let's go directly to the capacity of the hard drive. It is easy to guess that with the advent of the first railway, a lot of time has passed. Accordingly, this indicator grew exponentially. Now you can find drives with any capacity up to 10 TB, if we talk about the form factor 3.5. It is also important to remember that disks always have a multiple of 1024. Although manufacturers themselves always indicate parameters that are multiples of 1000. If you see that the drive has 200 GB, in fact its capacity is 186.2 GB.
Connected
Of course, if you bought your own hard drive, then you most likely know its volume. It is indicated both in the store and on the package, and even on a sticker on top of the device itself. In this case, you can only double-check the capacity of the hard drive. Also, those who ordered equipment from third-party resources may need to understand this issue. For example, Chinese online stores have long been famous for the substitution of parameters. So, the devices come from the wrong company or with the wrong characteristics. This may require a similar capacity analysis.
So, the equipment can be installed in the case and see its characteristics through the system. To do this, click on the "My Computer" icon. A new window opens. Before us will be one or more disks. You should not take into account only the drive and flash drive, if installed.
Typically, when installing a railway system, they are divided into several parts. Drive C places the entire system. It is recommended that you do not install anything else here. On discs D, E and so on are the user's personal data. The total amount of their volume is the railway capacity. To add it, you need to right-click on each disk, and then go to "Properties". A new window will appear in which you will see a chart, as well as numerical values. It indicates how much is free and busy, as well as the total volume. When calculating, do not forget to make a discount on the fact that the manufacturer indicates "beautiful" numbers. But instead of 500 GB, you will have only 452 GB.
Unconnected
There is a possibility that you just bought or gave you a train. Before connecting it, you can check the capacity. But for this you need a special box. This is because not all devices have a USB interface. For verification, we need to connect the HDD through this connector. After you connect the hard drive to the system, it can be checked as described above.
Programs
Perhaps, for some reason, the system verification method through My Computer is not suitable for you. In this case, a third-party program can help. For example, AIDA64 Extreme Edition. It is enough to download and install it on the test railway.
After starting, the software will scan the system. By the way, it shows not only information on the hard drive, but also on all other components. Therefore, after scanning, you will have to find specifically the railway parameters. After we go to the section "Data storage", and then - "Total size". Here you can find out about the model of the drive and other useful information.
Record holders
When buying, it is better to know the maximum information capacity of the hard drive. Of course, you are unlikely to need the most voluminous hard drive, but at least it’s worth understanding the scale of development of this device. So, the oldest used volume was an 8 MB drive. Now there’s not even room for a photo from some smartphones. The most common railways now are from 500 GB. Although in some older laptop models there are variations with 128 GB, etc.
It is known that the large capacity of a hard disk practically does not affect system performance. Sometimes you may not find a place for your data and files, as the PC may not withstand such volumes. It will require more memory for temporary system files. From here there will be noticeable "brakes" of the system.
The most capacious at the moment is a 10 TB giant drive. Such a disk may cost about 25 thousand rubles. But it will definitely be a lot for the average user. There is also a 6 TB model. Its price is slightly lower - 14 thousand rubles. It is very good that manufacturers, in addition to increasing capacity, also care about good speed, wear resistance and quality of materials.