Hard Drive speed and capacity question?

[macenforcer]

So we know that a hard drive gets slower as more data is put on it. So at what point does it slow down? Lets say you have a hard drive with 4 platters. When you add data, is the data broken down divided amongst the 4 platters or does it get put on the first platter and when it fills up then data goes on the second platter and so forth?

This is an interesting question that nobody has addressed. Hard drives of the same size can have different sized platters and therefore have more space on a single platter or less. For example, the new breed of 1tb drives all have different platter sizes. The samsung 1tb will have 3 platters at 334gb per platter but the hitachi has 5 platters with 200gb per platter. So which will be faster? Depends on how data is applied to the platters right?

So does anybody know the answer to this?

 

[amc382]

easy explanation:

HD speed is determined 1- by the rpm speed and 2-by density. the higher the density, the faster it is because any 2 pieces of data are theoretically much closer to each other, and to access.

so if you have two 7200rpm 1terabyte drives, the drive with 2 500gig platters would be faster than one with 3 333.3gig platters. you see?

also, the less platters on a drive, the more reliable they tend to be because there is less to go wrong. that's why i never buy the highest capacities when they first come out.

a third thing that affects speed is cache, but that's another story. besides, any HD sold today would have a good amount.

 

[macenforcer]

Doesn't really answer the question. Is data stored on one platter at a time or is it divided amongst the platters. If its stored one platter at a time then the drive would be faster when accessing some parts of the data then others. If its divided as its stored then it would keep a consistent speed until its filled up then data stored last would access slower.

 

[amc382]

the answer is both

hard drives store data with what's available. just based on probability, most files are on a single platter. larger files, or files that needed to be run across multiple platters does happen. i'm not sure how that would effect speed though,

 

[Bigheadache]

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