GTN

A hard drive or hard disk is a computer’s main storage device. Most hard drives are tucked away in the system unit of a computer and hidden from the view. Although you normally can’t see a computer’s internal hard drive you can usually hear it whirring inside when you start the computer or a program. An external hard drive sit outside the computer system unit and plugs into a USB, Firewire, or SCSI port.

 

The hard drive is like the file-cabinet portion of your desk. And files really are saved in folders on a computer, so this really is the perfect analogy. Most computers have a single hard drive located inside of the computer case labeled C. When a computer has more than one hard drive they are labeled D, then E, and so on. Unlike RAM, a hard drive retains its information even when you turn the computer off.

 

A computer’s operating system, like Windows XP, is stored on the hard drive.

Program files are programs you work with, like your word processor, your Internet software, or your games. Programs usually comes on floppy disks or CD-ROM’s, to use it first install, or copy, it to your hard drive in order to use the program.

Whenever you create a document or data file on your computer, like a word processing document, the computer stores it in its temporary memory (RAM). You must save your documents to the hard drive or they will be lost when you turn off your computer.