Can I use Hard Drives as storage without operating system?

Question

Can I use Hard Drives as Storage without an operating system?

And if it is possible what's the difference with that and a server?

Answer 1

Yes. A hard drive only needs an OS installed on it to be usable as a bootable drive. Only required information on a hard disk to make it accessable is the high level format.

Difference between a hard disk and a server? Comparing apples to oranges. Or, more aptly, that's like asking the difference between just an individual organ and an entire person. Server is a computer running a specialized OS. Hard Drives are included in that, but it has plenty more parts and intricacies as well.

Answer 2

Yes you can do that with an external harddrive which plugs into your USB port.

an external harddrive saves all your raw files and then when you plug it into an operating system, it automatically identifies which files are word files, excel files, powerpoint files, mp3 files, wma files, pdf files, jpeg files.   And it will ask you which application you want to use to open the file.

For example, if your operating system does not have microsoft office, and you drag and drop a word file from another harddrive onto your computer server, it will recognize it as a 'doc" word file if you have Microsoft Word on your operating system.    

If you don't it will say "which application would you like to use to open the file, and you can 'browse' and select."  If there is no program application that fits that file, the file will not be usable until you download and install the application to run the file.

Answer 3

u can use the hard drive like a usb drive.  a server is a computer that responds to a client.  usually the server offers programs storage and other functions.  servers do run on operating systems.

Answer 4

Yes. You can just slave it on the drive that has operating system. Actually, those drives that found on servers serves as a back-up and don't have any OS installed on it.  

Answer 5

idk ask a computer geek

Answer 6

In order to store information on a hard drive you need some type of operating system, even if it's MS-DOS. You can't put info on the HD if you don't have a computer with an OS (operating system) to put it on. I guess it only makes sense if you know computers, sorry. And an OS is simply a type of software installed on a computer to give the user an interface with options to run other programs (In simplest definition) and a server is totally different. Its a computer built specifically to run a very simple OS so that it can run, in most instances, a website to the best (performance-wise) of its ability.