Hard Drive Sizing
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Hard Drive Information
Hard drives come in many different shapes and sizes. Look through the lesson box and notice the characteristics that you will need to look for in order to locate the hard drive(s) in a computer system. Notice that their ribbon cables have different shaped connectors on them.
- Types of hard drives
- IDE
- SATA
- SCSI
- Hard drive sizing
Hard drive sizing can be easy or difficult. Some hard drives are marked with the size but some are not.
Hard drive sizes are general marked in gigabytes (GB). If it is an older drive, it may be marked in megabytes.
Sometimes there is a label on the drive that lists its "geometry". This include a number labeled "cylinders". If this number is 16000 or less, you can cut that number in half to determine the hard drive size. If it is more than 16000, the drive will be 8 GB in size or bigger, and you will need to determine the size in some other way.
If the drive is not marked with its size, you may need to google for its model number to figure out its size.
Sometimes, however, you can read its model number and make a very good guess as to its size. In some cases you drop the first number off the model number to determine the approximate size.