Talk:Hard disk drive/Archive 25

joke in an movie file
Hi all I've spotted that someone made a "joke" in movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HardDisk1.ogg The text there: "BARTEK TY KURWO XDDDD WYKOP.PL POZDRAWIA JPGMD"

is in Polish " Bartek (someones name) you whore greetings from JPGMD" - — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.73.47.13 (talk • contribs)


 * I removed that specific caption from the clip. Thank you for pointing that out. -- ChamithN   (talk)  15:07, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Form Factors
May I inquire as to why the table in this section is in metric? I can understand having the metric conversions in the worded paragraph but.. these are clearly imperial form factors and having the table in metric is just confusing.. just making sure there are no objections before I go in an edit it all to imperial. Jchap1590 (talk) 17:25, 13 April 2016 (UTC)


 * There are, to say the least, objections. Please don't do this. You will be reverted. Wikipedia prefers SI units. The point that "these are imperial form factors" is irrelevant as "3.5 inch", etc., do not actually correspond to any dimension of the drive itself. Jeh (talk) 18:07, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

WP:Recentism
Please distinguish between what is true of a HDD in general and what is true at this point in time. In particular, the constitution of the recording layer has evolv3ed ofver time and is not part of the definition of a HDD. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:21, 3 July 2016 (UTC)


 * ... fits even better.  "Modern" is slightly more vague, which is good in this case because it helps in avoiding the need for dating such a statement. &mdash; Dsimic (talk &#124; contribs) 17:48, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Near-term Development
There should be a mention of the move towards filling drives with helium. This will likely make temporary repairs for recovery rather more difficult (needing to replace the helium, plus having to replace seals and the seals will likely be harder to open). I also wonder about how well seals on such drives will be, will helium diffuse out and put a real upper limit on the lifetime of such drives? 207.172.210.101 (talk) 05:48, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Actually working with a gas filled item is not very hard at all you just get a flexible container (Bag) of the gas to surround it and work inside the bag so there is no need to worry about contamination. I first noticed this trick used in an old Elron Hubbard book "battlefield earth" but I have since seen it has been used for much longer than that in places where sensitive equipment must be opened in wet or dirty conditions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.3.37.81 (talk) 20:30, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Form Factor
This table is being moved here as it is making a visual mess of the article. The table is otherwise fine, but it needs to be made to work wherever it is placed. FYI : It is missing the still common 4.5" very common size! Also missing Microdrives (Compact Flash Size)!

Eyreland (talk) 03:42, 6 November 2016 (UTC)


 * It works fine for me on several different browsers. There is no "4.5 inch" hard drive size - citation, please? And the CF form factor is already present.
 * Beyond that: Since your previous edits in this area have been reverted, then per WP:BRD you may not unilaterally decide to remove long-standing, well-referenced content from the article, regardless of your opinion about it "making a mess". The next step is discussion here. Wikipedia is edited collaboratively, not at the whim of one editor. If you have specific suggestions to make to improve the table, or its appearance, or other changes to the article, please make them here. Please do not make them on the live article text. Jeh (talk) 04:26, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Are HDDs memory
Not according to most sources, see for example memory hierarchy, application of the concept which categorizes HDDs as secondary storage. IMO use of the term memory to describe HDDs generically misplaces them in the hierarchy and is more liable to cause reader confusion than the use of storage. Accordingly I support the recent change by ChamithN and reinstated it slightly modified. Tom94022 (talk) 06:08, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * There's already an ongoing discussion on User talk:Ne0Freedom. I actually do prefer the version you just reinstated; however, I decided not to revert back to it per WP:STATUSQUO, and as I'm still not entirely sure what Ne0Freedom wants the article to say. -- ChamithN   (talk)  07:00, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I also believe it's better to keep the phrase "retaining stored data even when powered off" (which you removed) as it describes the non-volatility of HDDs. It's valid regardless of what we call HDDs, "NVS" or "NVM"; both have "non-volatile" in them. -- ChamithN   (talk)  07:10, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * It's a bit redundant but I have no problem with that so I put it back in. Tom94022 (talk) 05:49, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
 * It's redundant for those who are aware of what NV means. But, we have to remember the reader here. And as per WP:TECHNICAL, we have to assume that: [The general reader] is largely unfamiliar with the topic itself and ...those who are only looking for a summary or general definition may stop reading at the end of the lead. Nevertheless, I'm glad that you put it back. -- ChamithN   (talk)  07:04, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Per WP:TALK, discussion of article content should take place on the article talk page, not at any editor's talk page. Discussion here is far more likely to be noticed by those interested in the article. I strongly encourage ChamithN and Ne0Freedom to bring their discussion here. Jeh (talk) 07:19, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * No problem. I actually took it to his talk page because the dispute was regarding edits made to two articles. I wasn't entirely sure which one out of the two would be more appropriate to have the discussion. -- ChamithN   (talk)  07:28, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks to the author(s) from the Tatar Wikipedia participants
Thank you, the author(s) of this article. We translated your article into the Tatar language.--A.Khamidullin (talk) 12:32, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Standardized capacities? (aka: Actual vs. reported drive capacities yet again, but different)
The "1 TB" SSD on this machine provides... um, Windows won't give me the exact number in bytes, but it says 976746 MB. By MB they of course mean MiB. Multiply that by 1024 squared and I get 1,024,192,413,696 bytes, comfortably over the advertised "1 TB", even though Windows says it's 953.85 GB (which really means GiB). I get it. This section has nothing to do with decimal vs. binary prefixes.

What I am interested in here is the difference between 1,000,000,000,000 and 1,024,192,413,696. My long experience is that the drive's actual capacity, that is, its number of logical blocks multiplied by the block size, has always - no exceptions IME - been slightly more than the advertised capacity. Note that this particular SSD's spec sheet claims it provides "1024 GB", and that "GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes", and the actual capacity here is slightly more than even that, by almost 200 MB.

This point, that the actual capacity of a hard drive is slightly greater than its advertised capacity, is not reported in the article.

This can be relevant when drives are aggregated in e.g. RAID arrays. Most such configurations can only use the smallest common capacity of all drives in the array. Maybe one drive Suppose that in the past you built an array of 750 GB drives. The Seagate spec for one such drive says that they guarantee "1,465,149,168 sectors". That's 750,156,374,016 bytes. Now suppose one of them failed. You had to go out and find a replacement drive of the exact same model, or one of greater capacity, or else it might not have enough to match the rest of your array. If your new drive had a little less capacity than the existing drives in the array, you were screwed.

A RAID controller I used to use did have an option to round the drives' capacity down to the next even gigabyte. So my RAID array would then use exactly 750,000,000,000 of each "750 GB" drive, and they could all be different sizes but all a little larger than that, and that extra would just be ignored. Since the extra is a tiny fraction of the total capacity, losing it was a fair tradeoff for not worrying about exact drive capacities.

A few months or years or eons ago, someone on this talk page - I believe it was - mentioned that due to this need to aggregate drives into e.g. RAID arrays, and the fact that such arrays usually require all drives to have the same capacity, the industry had adopted a set of standard exact drive sizes, specified down to the block. So when you bought a "4 TB" you were getting the exact same capacity, down to the block, no matter what model of drive it was.

Is there a table in a RS of these standardized drive sizes? Jeh (talk) 05:23, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
 * As far as I can recall the issue came up in the Binary Prefix article and referenced some IDEMA publication which had definitions for TB and GB that were neither binary nor decimal. I looked at the IDEMA site but it seems they have closed much of their pubs.  I'll keep looking.  Tom94022 (talk) 06:29, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Looks like they only have a defintion for GB, see: IDEMA Document LBA1-03 LBA Count for Disk Drives Standard. Of course 1 TB = 1000 GB(IDEMA) :-) Tom94022 (talk) 06:45, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

five million six-bit characters = (3.75 megabytes)... How ?
just leave it as 3.75MB (as written in the associated link)

or we should write exact value. or we should change to "around five million... "

Shrivastava Dinesh (talk) 15:19, 7 May 2017 (UTC)


 * This has been discussed extensively before. Briefly, five million (and it is exactly 5,000,000) x 6 bits = 30,000,000 bits. Divide that by eight (eight bits to a byte) and you get 3.75 MB. I believe the discussion ended in Archive 17. (And by "extensively" I mean I doubt anyone wants to deal with it again.) Jeh (talk) 16:13, 7 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I thought my question (in the talk-page) was number-5, I didn't notice that there were archives too. I read Archive-17. I learnt a lot there. Today I came to know that there is more hidden knowledge in "Talk pages". And I understood the logic too. Thanks.Shrivastava Dinesh (talk) 17:37, 7 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I daresay that many involved in that discussion learned some things! And you're welcome. Jeh (talk) 18:54, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 30 June 2017

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved as per the clear consensus. — usernamekiran (talk)  07:55, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Hard disk drive → Hard drive – WP:COMMONNAME: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=hard%20disk%20drive,hard%20drive ArniDagur (talk) 17:37, 30 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment: I think that we need to seriously think about what we intend to mean by 'hard drive'. A solid-state drive (SSD) is commonly referred to as being a 'hard drive' but is definitely not the same as a HDD (this article makes the distinction quite nicely). Potentially we need to think about splitting out elements from both SSD and HDD to create a new article just entitled 'hard drive' and then retaining SSD and HDD as more technical articles. Ebonelm (talk) 23:35, 1 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Oppose and agree with Ebonelm's approach instead. Dicklyon (talk) 05:14, 2 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Oppose "Hard disk drive" is unambiguous, while "Hard drive" is less so. The tipping point to rename would be when "Hard disk drive" is so little used that it may cause confusion to readers; we are still very far from that point.  --A D Monroe III (talk) 17:24, 2 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Oppose both the move and Ebonelm's approach. Note the article cited by Ebonelm uses HDD as a synomnym for hard drive.  "Hard drive" currently redirects to "Hard disk drive;"  I suggest we simply change the redirect into a disabiguation page. IMO there is no need in the foreseeable future for a separate "Hard disk" article.  Tom94022 (talk) 18:00, 2 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Oppose both the move and Ebonelm's approach. COMMONNAME is not a mandate to use misleading names, indeed, it says "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources". And "hard drive" on an article that included SSDs would be misleading. Jeh (talk) 23:14, 2 July 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Form factors?
Any feelings about stripping out the form factors section and making it into a separate List of hard disk drive form factors or something like that? The list of floppy disk formats got removed from its article. My concern is that we have a lot of text and footnotes, and it seems to me to make this article awkwardly large and excessively detailed. --Wtshymanski (talk) 01:05, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * A good idea particularly since these specific form factors started in FDD and promulgated into optical so one article linked to from the several makes sense. Note there are already several form factor articles so the article title needs some thought, perhaps Form Factor (disk drives)? There may be a problem in avoiding OR since I am not aware of any RS on the evolution of FF.  Tom94022 (talk) 01:22, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree it's a good idea, but why not just List of disk drive form factors?--agr (talk) 01:27, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The section as it stands has a lot of material much of which is very HDD specific, especially in the table. A list of just "disk drive" form factors would be a very small article and leave behind much of what is in the current section, to the point where such a list might not be worthy of an article.  A comprehensive article on 'Form Factor (disk drives) would have to be less HDD specific especially in the table.  Tom94022 (talk) 06:40, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I've always thought that an encyclopedia article on "bolt" should talk in general about thread forms, strength, materials, history,theory of bolted joints, standards - but the exhaustive listing of all the possible dimensions is for a parts catalog, not an encyclopedia. When we start listing the spacing of the mounting holes, we've gone beyond the level of detail appropriate to an encyclopedia. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:09, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree, a simple list especially with mounting hosles is level of detail inappropriate to an encyclopedia. The main problems with just making the current section an article is that the history is inverted (FF history started in the FD world) and the table, while interesting is too HDD specific -  maybe we could leave the HDD details behind and have the table show which FFs existed on which disk drives?  Tom94022 (talk) 16:24, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Include SSD to compare in form factor section?
I added SSD info, that was reverted by.

I'm not saying an SSD is a disk/HDD/"spinning round disc of rust", just adding so that people can compare. However to most people, they don't care (but do on cost..) if it's a disk/disc or not, but want to know if it fits in and has compatible interface.

I not there hatnote at the top (and SSD compared to HDD in the lead):

with that page saying:

Hard drive may also refer to:


 * Solid-state drive, a computer storage device that has no moving parts

comp.arch (talk) 13:04, 12 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Hard drive can be ambiguous particularly when viewed thru an OS an HDD and an SSD are supported by the same software, see also Section 2 above. HDD is much less ambiguous.  This is an HDD article so including SDD is inconsistent with the articles subject.  Furthermore "Form factor" applies to many devices including floppy disk, tape, optical disk and others so just adding SSDs to the table is an inconsistancy.     perhaps displays some bias and age when he refers to HDDs as "spinning round disc of rust" - the industry stopped using gamma iron oxide in the early 1990s :-).  The place to note compatiblity to SATA interface and various Form Factors is in the SDD article not the HDD article (which BTW was not accomplished by including it in the table).  Tom94022 (talk) 03:20, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

real-time transaction processing computer?
The IBM 305 RAMAC, with the IBM 350 disk drive, was not a real-time transaction processing computer; it was marketed as an accounting machine. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:08, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
 * So what do you see as the difference? AIUI, the 305 RAMAC was marketed specifically for its real-time abilities (owing to the HDD), particularly for ERP, factory control etc. This is both transaction processing and accountancy. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:35, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
 * What is the basis for the assertion that the 305 was not a real-time transaction processing computer?  The 305 manual compares its method of accounting with prior methods as follows,
 * "This single ability - being able to handle transactions to the ultimate conclusion without presequencing - is a powerful tool for the use of management in the operation and control of a business." (RAMAC 305 General Information Manual, IBM, (c) 1960, p.9)
 * which sounds like real time transaction processing to me. BTW, isn't that what Professor RAMAC demonstrated at the 1958 Brussells World's Fair?  Tom94022 (talk) 00:39, 24 October 2017 (UTC)


 * He demonstrated a single inquiry station, which was all that the 305 supported. A transaction processing computer supports a large number of terminals. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:39, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
 * That's not a necessary requirement for transaction processing though. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:03, 24 October 2017 (UTC)


 * The difference is that the 305 processed batches of cards rather than responding to external transactions with time constraints. It was not a process control computer. shows that it was limited to a single console typewriter, with its primary input from punched card s. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:39, 24 October 2017 (UTC)


 * See also Transaction processing system and Transaction processing system. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:48, 25 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Of course Wiki cites are not determinative but the first cite sounds like the objectives for the RAMAC 305 - transaction previously performed by humans with a tub file of cards and a batch processing system were handled in the 305 as a transaction, albeit it slowly when compared to modern systems. The folks who worked on the 305, mostly now dead, felt strongly it was the first "transaction processing computer," predating SAGE.  FWIW I once tried to contact Jim Gray author of "Transaction Processing: Concepts and Techniques" to point him to the 305 but unfortunately he had also died.  I probably can find some material from those pioneeers characterizing the 305 as a transaction processor.  Tom94022 (talk) 23:48, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * How about:


 * Tom94022 (talk) 00:04, 26 October 2017 (UTC)