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The hard disk drive is the primary storage device that a computer uses to store all the data, software applications and the operating system. It lets you store and retrieve data digitally. Originally developed for computers, they are now used in a wide range of devices such as audio players, video cameras, digital cameras and personal digital devices. The hard drive has undergone a radical evolution since its invention. Rapid advances in computers have made it possible to produce larger capacity hard disk drives. In the past decade, a hard drive with 10GB capacity was considered to be large enough and expensive. However, today, a typical desktop computer is available with a minimum capacity of 80GB.

Hard disk drives are broadly classified under two types: internal hard drives and external hard drives. An internal hard drive is housed inside the computer cabinet and connected to the motherboard. These drives are non-portable and much faster than external hard drives. An external hard drive is portable and placed outside the computer in its own protective enclosure. They are linked with the central processing unit (CPU) via a high-speed cable like a USB or FireWire cable. External drives are available as USB hard drives (pen drives) and flash drives. They provide a convenient means of backing up data in case the hard drive crashes or gets corrupted by malicious programs. These drives also serve to separate sensitive data from the internal storage drive, which could be compromised by online or offline activities.

Before deciding on buying a hard drive, there are some key factors that you should consider including storage capacity, internal cache, and transfer speed. The storage capacity of the disk is the most important criterion before choosing a hard drive that best suits your requirements. For normal storage of data, a standard 80GB internal hard disk would suffice, while a computer that uses multimedia applications for creating and editing images and animation would require a hard disk with a huge storage capacity. As the storage requirement of your computer increases, you can choose to upgrade your computer with a larger capacity hard drive. The next important aspect is the internal cache memory, also called the buffer, which helps to fasten the data transfer rate for optimum computer performance.

A wide range of hard drives are available on the market and they differ in their speed and storage capacity. Some of the popular brands of hard disk drives include the Western Digital Passport 250GB USB 2.0 Hard Drive, the Seagate FreeAgent 500GB USB 2.0 Hard Drive, the SimpleTech 500GB IDE Hard Drive, the Hitachi Deskstar 750GB SATA Hard Drive, and the Seagate Maxtor OneTouch 4 500GB USB Hard Drive.