How does a Hard-disk work?

Question

How does a computer Hard-disk work?

No links please... Your own words! And i need HOW it works, not WHAT for...

Answer 1

Hard disk is made up of multiple mettle platters.  On the platters are low and high magnetic signals.  A high magnetic signal is a 1 and a low magnetic signal is a 0 (1's and 0's make up all information on a computer.)

The platter/disk spins.  A "head" reads the signals (moving toward the center of the disk or back to the edge to read different tracks (rings of info around the disk).

Information is passed to the computer. and changed by the head as necessary.

That would probably get you minimum score ...

Answer 2

In addition to Ryan's answer, which was very good...

The head/reader arm moves by running a current through loops of wire that generate a magnetic field and pushes against a very strong permanent magnet in the hard drive. This mechanism has nothing to do with changing the magnetic signal, just moving the arm.

Hard drives read and write on both sides of a platter (metal platter, not mettle).

The hard drive circuit board stores up read/write instructions and has buffer memory/cache to store frequently accessed or queued up data temporarily off the disks themselves. That cache is faster than reading off the hard disks.

Hard drives are inherently slow devices because they are mechanically limited. The head needs to move from track to track and the disks spin. Consequently you have a seek time.

Answer 3

A hard disk is magnetic media. Data is transfered magnetically from the read/write head directly to the platter.