How to find out what hard drive is on the computer. The main parameters of the hard drive and where to see them? How to calculate the real capacity of a hard drive

The main parameters of any hard drive include the form factor (2.5 for a laptop, 3.5 for a desktop PC), volume, connection interface (Sata 1, Sata 2, Sata 3, and so on), spindle speed, buffer size.

In order to find out which hard drive is installed in your computer or laptop, there are many methods. In this article we will talk about the simplest and most affordable of them. There will be a way without installing additional programs and using the Aida64 program.

The way to find out what hard drive is on the computer # 1 - Through computer management

So, to determine the model of the hard drive, we need to go to computer management.

To do this, right-click on the "Computer" icon on the desktop or in the start menu and select "Management" ("Computer Management").

Entering Computer Management

In the upper left corner, open the item "Storage devices" -\u003e "Disk Management".

Open "Storage Devices" -> "Disk Management"

In the right part of the window, you will see all hard drives and CD drives installed in the computer.

By volume, select the hard drive whose parameters we want to know, right-click on it and select "Properties" in the menu that opens.

The hard disk properties window will open, where its model will be written on the General tab.

We find in the properties the model of the hard disk installed in the computer

Now, to find out all the main parameters, you need to enter this model into any search engine and look on the Internet for the parameters you are interested in.

Looking for a model on the Internet

We look at the full description of all the characteristics of the hard drive

Aida64 program - A way to find out which hard drive is on computer # 2

Download and install the Aida64 program from the official website. The program has a 30-day trial period. Therefore, you can easily use the trial version.

How to find out what hard drive is on the computer

In most cases, a simple layman may need information about the “C” drive when there are obvious malfunctions in the operation of the operating system or there is a question about the need to replace it with a more capacious one. It is these situations that make most users look for the answer to the question of how to find out which hard drive is on the computer. In other cases, this need does not arise. There is no particular difficulty here, and each user can easily do this if he knows the order in which simple actions are performed.

What is a hard drive and what is it like?

A hard drive among users has other names - a hard drive, Hard Disk Drive or abbreviated as HDD, a screw. This is the name of the part of the computer system unit, which performs the functions of recording and rewriting information.
It is he who stores absolutely all the information, and the file data of the operating system is no exception. If you install the program, then all information is stored on the hard drive, the same happens if files are recorded or copied on the computer.

HDD can be presented in two versions: external and built-in.
1. An external (portable or portable) hard drive is a removable design that is hidden in a special block for easy portability. They have a different amount of memory and a connection interface (USB 3.0 or 2.0).
2. The built-in (internal) hard drive is located directly in the operating unit of a personal computer or in a laptop. They differ in size: for a PC - 3.5 inches, and for a laptop - 2.5 inches.

All incoming information is generated on special magnetic disk drives, if you open the lid, you can clearly see it. But this kind of hard drives are gradually becoming a thing of the past, being replaced by a board. It is more functional and less exposed to external damage, as it does not contain moving parts. In addition, they provide a faster and quieter operation of the operating system. But the cost of such hard boards is many times higher than magnetic ones.

How to find out information about the hard drive on your computer?

For many users, it remains a mystery what kind of hard drive is on their computer. Yes, in fact, they do not need to own this information. And if there are problems with the operating system, which in most cases indicates the incorrect operation of the hard drive, then the diagnostics are carried out by the wizard. But there are often cases when, when talking about problems that have arisen, the masters are interested in this particular indicator of your PC. The very same diagnosis of the Hard Disk Drive takes a lot of time, so such repairs are made quickly and cannot be done at home.

So how to see the hard drive on a computer? There are several options for obtaining this information. The easiest way to find out this data, which can be applied on any, even a non-working computer, is to remove the hard drive from the case of the system unit or laptop and get acquainted with the data of interest to us. To do this, you need to turn off the power (the battery is removed from the laptop), the cover (lower on the bottom) is unwound and the same hard drive is taken out.

If the computer can be turned on, then you can get complete information about the installed hard drive by using programs. But for each parameter you need to perform its own set of actions.

So, to find out the volume available on your computer Hard Disk Drive, you need to right-click on the desktop icon or the Start panel "My Computer". In the window that opens, select "Computer Management". In the additional utility that opens, find and click on "Storage Devices", the next step is to click on "Disk Management". The window will show the true amount of memory that your PC or laptop has on the hard drive. It will be designated as "Disk 0". For convenience, manufacturers and users use figures rounded to the nearest thousand when referring to this indicator. So, the volume of 40Gb corresponds to a real figure of 37.25 Gb, 60Gb - 55.88 Gb, 500 Gb - 465.65 Gb, etc.

Next to the available information about the amount of memory, there may be two more small windows. This suggests that your hard drive is divided into two or three logical volumes, where one, usually called "C", will serve as the storage of the operating system, and the second "D" accumulates all the information saved by the user.

To find out which model of hard drive "C" you need to perform the following steps. We start everything with the same double-click on the "My Computer" icon. Select "Computer Management". In the menu that opens, you need to find the shortcut "Device Manager". In order to view the installed disk drives, you need to activate the "Disk devices" item. Full information about the installed hard drives on your PC or laptop will open.

Special programs for testing the hard drive

You can also find out which hard drive is installed on your personal computer or laptop using special programs. Some of these are the following:
EVEREST;
AIDA64;
HDD scan.

Such programs are designed not only to find out the brand and volume of a Hard Disk Drive, but also to scan it, find bad sectors, assess the general condition of any drive, determine the maximum heating temperature, and battery consumption.

In order to check the hard drive, you need to download the program and run it on your PC. A menu usually appears in the window where we find and activate the “Data Storage”, the utility opens a complete list of all storage devices on this PC: actual and logical, optical drives, Windows storage, etc. We are interested in an icon called “ATA”, clicking on which in the main window opens complete information about the hard drive: from the model to the temporary search indicators.

These are the main ways to find the necessary information about the installed Hard Disk Drive on your PC or laptop.

Why is a hard drive called a hard drive?

Winchesters began to be called hard drives in the United States in the 70s of the twentieth century. Then IBM released the first analogue of modern hard drives: a device consisting of two cabinets, inside of which there were magnetic disks with a capacity of 30 MB each.

It was marked with the inscription "30x30" - exactly the same inscription was present on the rifle of the well-known Winchester company. At first, hard drives were called "hard drives" as a joke, but soon the name was firmly entrenched in them and became almost official.

Not everyone knows that a computer has several hard drives. For example, when opening the My Computer program, we see the icons of drives C, D, E, F. But this does not mean that you have one hard drive - in most cases, these are several logical drives on which the only physical drive installed on the computer is marked.

But it also happens that a computer has several physical drives installed, if you are not afraid to open your system unit and find them, if again you know what they look like.

Each of the hard disks can be marked with one Latin letter or, in turn, can be divided into several logical disks. This is convenient, for example, to store separately movies, games, documents, photos. And also in case of disk defragmentation by programs, which will take less time.

So how do you determine the number of hard drives on a computer without opening it?

Everything is very simple. Click "Start" and right-click on "Computer". You can also click on the My Computer icon on the desktop, unless that icon is without an arrow at the bottom, i.e. it is not a shortcut. In the context menu that appears, select "Manage".

The following window will open:

Here you need to select the "Disk Management" section. The display will show information about the physical drives and the logical volumes on which they are marked. The following illustration shows an example of one hard drive partitioned into two logical drives. There are also two hidden sections intended for the system needs of the computer - they do not interest us.

And here we see two hard drives at once - Disk0 and Disk1:

Disk 0 is divided into logical - C,D,E,F. We don't see all the letters here. If you have Windows installed on Disk0, then even after removing Disk1, the operating system will boot quietly.

Disk 1 is solid and not divided into logical partitions, marked with the letter G.

How to find out the real size of the hard drive

For a better understanding, manufacturers and sellers indicate the traditional volume of disks: 40, 60, 120, 160, 320, 500, 640 GB, and so on. However, in reality, it is always less than stated, because:
1 GB = 1024 MB
1 MB = 1024 KB
1 KB = 1024 bytes

ANDSo, we see that the logical drive C has a capacity of 400.76 GB, and the physical drive G has 931.51 GB. The total capacity of drive C can be found by adding up the volumes of its logical drives.

First of all, you need to learn that there are 2 types of “screws” (hard drives) for desktop computers, mainly differing in the type of connection:

1. IDE(aka ATA, he is PATA ) — obsolete, but still used type of hard drives. Visually, it can be distinguished by a wide cable slot (40 pins in 2 rows) at the end of the HDD (hard disk) itself and four thick contacts on the right for connecting the power cable. You can read more about the ATA standard on Wikipedia.

1. SATA(SATA2) - next, more advanced level in the development of the previous standard. It differs by much better indicators in terms of data exchange speed. And this means recording, copying, deleting your favorite movies, music, movies, the computer will be faster.

The main characteristics of the hard drive: interface, capacity, buffer size, physical size (form factor), random access time, data transfer rate, IOPS, spindle speed, noise level.

The first thing you should pay attention to when choosing a hard drive - interface- a device that converts and transmits signals between the HDD and the computer. The most common interfaces now are: SCSI, SAS, ATA (IDE, PATA), Serial ATA (SATA), eSATA and USB.

The SCSI interface has a speed of 640MB / s, it is used mainly on servers; SAS is its higher speed counterpart (12 Gb/s) and is backwards compatible with the interface SATA.

ATA (IDE, PATA) - predecessor SATA, now it is no longer relevant due to its low speed of 150MB / s.

eSATA and USB - interfaces for external hard drives.

Serial ATA (SATA)- This is the most common hard drive interface. It is on him that you should be guided when choosing a hard drive. There are currently several variations SATA. From a physical point of view, they do not differ (the interfaces are compatible), the differences are only in speed: (SATA-I - 150 MB / s, SATA-II - 300 MB / s, SATA-III - 600 MB / s.).

As for the capacity: everything is simple. The larger it is, the better, as more information can be recorded. This characteristic does not affect the performance of the hard drive. Defined by the user based on the need for storage space for files. The table below shows the average sizes of the main file types that you should pay attention to when choosing HDD.

Buffer size (cache). Buffer (cache) is a volatile memory (similar to RAM) built into a hard disk, designed to smooth out differences in read / write speed, as well as store data that is accessed most often. The more cache, the better. The indicator varies from 8 to 64 MB. The most optimal value is 32 MB.

There are two main form factor for hard drives: 3.5 inches and 2.5 inches. The first is mainly used in desktop computers, the second - in laptops.

Random access time. This characteristic shows the average time during which the hard drive performs the operation of positioning the read / write head on an arbitrary section of the magnetic disk. The parameter ranges from 2.5 to 16 milliseconds. Naturally, the lower the value, the better.

Transfer rate. Modern hard drives have a speed of 50-75 Mb / s (for the inner zone of the HDD) and 65-115 Mb / s (for the outer zone).

The number of I/O operations per second. This characteristic ranges from 50 to 100 operations per second, depending on the placement of information on the disk.

The last three parameters should be considered in a hierarchical sequence, depending on the purpose of the hard drive. If you often use bulky applications, games, often watch movies in HD quality, they should be selected in the following sequence: data transfer rate > number of I / O operations per second > random access time. If you have a lot of small, frequently launched applications in your arsenal, then the hierarchy will look like this: random access time > number of IOPS > data transfer rate.

Spindle speed is the number of spindle revolutions per minute. Access time and average data transfer rate largely depend on this parameter. The most common are rotation speeds: 5400, 5900, 7200, 10000 and 15000 rpm. The optimal speed for a PC is 7200 rpm.

Noise level hard drive consists of spindle noise and positioning noise. Measured in decibels. This characteristic should be paid attention from the convictions of comfort.

Hard disk manufacturer.

At the moment, the main manufacturers of hard drives are - western digital, Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate Technology, Toshiba. You can argue to the point :) to argue which company is better ... But let's get to the facts.. Let's type in a smart search engine Nigma.ru "hard drive problem....."(instead of dots - we write the company):

hard drive problemHitachi- requests 5 400 000.

hard drive problem Seagate- requests 5 500 000.

hard drive problemWestern Digital- requests 7 400 000 .

hard drive problemsamsung- requests 17 000 000.

As you can see, the first place in terms of reliability is Hitachi, the second Seagate. Although I would, based on my own experience, put in second placeWestern Digital (WD).

WD come with stickers in different colors - Black(black), Blue(blue), Green(green). The most reliable is Black, In second place Blue and on the last Green.

So, when choosing a hard drive:

1. Important! You need to find out - what connector on your old hard drive. If IDE, then I advise you to look at the connectors on the motherboard. In the presence of SATA-connections, better to buy SATA hard drive. With absence sata, buy IDE.

2. Important! Find out if your old PSU will pull, typically 300 watts - a new one (perhaps more voluminous and speedy) HDD.

For normal operation of disks, they must be periodically, once a month, defragmented.

So what is fragmentation...
During operation, files written to the drive are often not located in consecutive clusters, but are spread into several pieces in different parts of the plate. This also happens when the file size increases during the operation of the computer and when large files are written to a full hard drive, when it simply does not have a sufficient number of consecutive free clusters. The more often files are modified, the more their fragmentation grows (i.e., the file is split into more “pieces”). This leads to the fact that reading the file will take more and more time, because the hard disk will have to intensively move its heads, collecting scattered pieces of the file over the entire area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe plates. The more fragments in the file, the slower our computer works. Probably, each of us at least once got angry at how slowly a game level loads or a “heavy” application like Adobe Photoshop starts.
So, file fragmentation is evil. And evil must be fought mercilessly, moreover, it is better on its territory. :)

The main weapon in the fight against file fragmentation are defragmenter programs. There are quite a few of them, but the essence of their work is one. During the analysis of the hard disk, a map of the distribution of files by clusters is created, after which the fragmented files are moved to free space so that the entire file ends up in successive clusters. Consider a defrag program.

Defraggler 1.01

Developer: Piriform Ltd

Distribution size: 445 KB

Work under control: Windows 2K/XP/2003/Vista

Distribution method: freeware (http://www.defraggler.com/download)

Price: for free

Defraggler is a very simple and easy to use defragmentation tool that is fast and free. The program is extremely easy to manage, does not require any settings and is very compact - to run it you need only one file that can be copied to a flash drive and later used on any computer without installation. The principle of operation of the Defraggler is somewhat different from similar solutions.

First, the program analyzes the specified disk and displays a complete list of files with fragmentation, and with an indication of the full path to each of them. And then, also at the request of the user, it can defragment selected folders and files, or immediately the entire disk as a whole. During defragmentation, the program processes even very large files, but skips system-locked files and the MFT area.

Hard drive capacity is one of the critical parameters of a computer. Sometimes it's time to change storage media. The decisive characteristic for making such a decision is the size of the hard disk.

1. For a quick look at your PC's available storage capacity, open File Explorer and click This PC. Follow these steps:

• Press Win+E.
• The File Explorer window will open.
• Select "this PC" from the items listed on the left side of the window.
• You see an overview of all hard drives and their partitions used in this PC.
• PC storage overview.

2. At a glance, you can determine the storage capacity of your PC. The blue part of the thermometer shows the portion of the disc being used; the gray part represents the available space.

3. When the available space gets too low, the thermometer turns red to help you quickly identify low capacity hard drives. You must respond in some way to this situation if you wish to continue using the disc.

4. For more information about the hard drive partition, right-click the drive and select Properties. The Storage Properties dialog box appears. The General tab shows detailed information about the used and free space of the drive, as shown here.

5. When free space drops below 10 percent, Windows displays a free capacity warning. If you see this message, act immediately. Look for what part of the existing content you can painlessly remove or transfer to other media.

6. You can also find out the data of interest to us without starting the operating system. The necessary information is available in the BIOS. To find out, turn on the power of the computer, during the startup process, hold down the key to enter the BIOS (it can be del, or F10, depending on the model of the motherboard). You will enter the menu. Use the arrow keys and Tab to navigate through the tabs and find the IDE menu. Select the hard drive you are interested in (it can only be one) and press the enter key. A window will open with the characteristics of the media, including its capacity.

7. In addition, you can use special diagnostic utilities that provide complete information about a particular type of equipment. For our task, something like HDD Life is suitable. After installing and running the program, you will see a window with detailed information about the status, characteristics and condition of your hard drives.

Video: Find out the amount of RAM, video memory and hard drive size

There are few cases when you need to find out the model of your hard drive. Most often, a similar question is asked when the hard drive ordered to live for a long time - errors appear during operation, or the OS does not boot at all due to a non-working disk. It happens that you need to determine your HDD in order to replace it with a more capacious one, or this information is simply interesting for you.

In any case, problems with a hard drive are among those that are fixed in workshops, since home computer repair is only advisable when the problem can be fixed quickly and efficiently. Diagnosis of HDD malfunctions takes a long time, which means that you can quickly only replace the problematic disk with a new one.

The most primitive way to find out your hard drive is to get it out of the system unit or laptop case. To do this, turn off the power (remove the laptop battery), unscrew the system unit (or the bottom cover on the bottom of the laptop) and take out our HDD, on which all the information of interest will be visible - manufacturer, volume, speed, country of production and other parameters.

If you have no desire to disassemble a laptop or unwind the system unit, then we can find out all the information of interest using the program method.

How to find out the real size of the hard drive

For a better understanding, manufacturers and sellers indicate the traditional volume of disks: 40, 60, 120, 160, 320, 500, 640 GB, and so on. However, in reality, it is always less than stated, because:
1 GB = 1024 MB
1 MB = 1024 KB
1 KB = 1024 bytes

and manufacturers round up to 1000 when calculating. Below is a table of correspondence between the marking volume of the HDD and the real one.

To verify this, right-click on the shortcut My computer and choose Control. In the utility that opens, go to the tab storage devices - Disk Management

In our case, the utility shows 465.65 GB, which corresponds to a label of 500 GB.

How to find out the hard drive model

As in the previous method, right-click on the shortcut My computer and choose Control. In the computer management utility that opens, click the tab device Manager. Expand here Disk devices and you will see the hard drives installed on your computer.

In our case, there are two of them - Hitachi HTS545050A7E380 and SanDisk SSD i100 24 GB. The first is a traditional HDD, the second is a solid state SSD drive.

How to find out all the information about your hard drive

To the program AIDA64 we have already asked for help when we were looking for , etc. This utility will help us this time as well.

You can get acquainted with the AIDA64 program and download it for free from our website.

Run AIDU on your computer and go through the tabs Storage - ATA. At the top of the window, select the desired hard drive, if there are several, and the program will show all the information about the hard drive. The report is divided into parts, the information we need is titled as ATA device properties And Device physical data.

As you can see, everything is elementary and absolutely simple, if you know what tools to use to search for information.