Talk:Hard disk drive/Archive 20

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Partitions? File systems? RAID?

These are artifacts of how most operating systems use HDDs, but they're not actually about the drives. They all apply to SSDs and small "flash drives" as well. Just how far into these details does this article need to go? We have to stop somewhere. Jeh (talk) 16:52, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Good point. But just because some newer technology supports something that was originally designed for the old doesn't mean it isn't associated with the old. If it was first designed with only HDDs in mind, I think it's okay to include. --A D Monroe III (talk) 20:55, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, back at the time all that was designed specifically to be used with HDDs. Later, some of that technology was adapted or adjusted for flash-based storage, for example file systems specifically designed to be used on top of raw flash, and partition alignment (which completed a circle with 4Kn HDDs) – just to name a few. Thus, it's Ok to be included in the article. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 04:41, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

But to what level of detail? All of these things have their own articles (or should), so I think coverage here should be limited to a few sentences each, each with a WL to the corresponding article. We should also mention that in some environments there were no partitions or file systems. In IBM S/360 operating systems, a "data set" was simply defined as a number of cylinders, and any JCL stream that knew the magic syntax to refer to a set of cylinders could make them available to programs within the job. Assignment of sets of cylinders to various uses was done manually. The sector size wasn't fixed either - an installation could define what they wanted the sector size to be, all the way up to an entire track. (Tom94022 knows much more about this than I do.) I suppose you could call it "partitioning" but there was nothing recorded on the hard drive to define the partitions. Jeh (talk) 07:14, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Jeh that these things have little to do with HDDs per se, but may deserve a minimum mention which I happened to do just before reading this talk when I merged the old File System Use subsection and new Partition Mapping Scheme subsection into one System Use subsection under the Capacity section. The details belong in other articles. Same thing goes for RAID, which right now appears to me to be only mentioned at a few appropriate places. Tom94022 (talk) 07:45, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Sure thing, they should be mentioned only as brief summaries, and everything else belongs to already existing separate articles. Currently, Hard disk drive § System use section looks good (that's what this is about, it I'm not mistaken?) even without dwelling further into RAID layouts, logical volumes and whatnot. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 08:28, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

The HDD article concerns HDDs, not SSDs. HDDs less than 100 MB aren't common, because they're largely obsolete. Cluttering the article with SSD-specific provisos, trivia and eventualities is not justified. It just adds clutter. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, carefully edited to strip out irrelevant asides and cover only notable items. SSD formatting should be addressed elsewhere, not here.71.128.35.13 (talk) 22:59, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Huh? What? I don't think anybody suggested covering SSD formatting. Jeh (talk) 23:28, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Just for reference, it's about this revert. 71.128.35.13, you're right about the fact that this article deals with HDDs, but then again, stating that "this system overhead is usually smaller than 1% of the un-formatted capacity" simply isn't sensible for contemporary 1 TB+ HDDs. On the other hand, this article also covers historical aspects of HDDs, so stating that "this system overhead is usually smaller than 1% on drives larger than 100 MB" should be fine even without considering any relationship with contemporary SSDs. Hope you agree. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 23:32, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Ok, this might be some kind of a compromise. Looking good? — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 23:39, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

It mentions >0.1 GB drives, but the smallest non-obsolete 2.5inch drive is around 100GB, three orders of magnitude larger. Why couldn't this be brought up to date?--71.128.35.13 (talk) 20:08, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

As already noted, this article also covers numerous historical aspects of HDDs. Thus, such statements shouldn't be simply considered to be outdated. Hope you agree. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 21:56, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Is there a reliable source for "usually smaller than 1% on drives larger than 100 MB". My recollection is that is was <1% on my first 10 MB HDD, but I'd have to dig around to figure out a percentage. Can't we just say "usually negligible" and stop splitting hairs. Tom94022 (talk) 17:11, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

That's a very good point. If we wanted to express the overhead through exact percentages, that would actually require references. Went ahead and edited the sentence so it contains no percentages or HDD capacities. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 04:27, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Video: Overview of how an HDD functions

The video called "Overview of how an HDD functions" on 0:48 has misspelled the word "Acutator". I think it should be as "Actuator". (comment posted by 81.198.139.168 (talk · contribs) at 2015-01-29T20:55:32‎ (UTC)

You are correct about the spelling. But afaict, that video is not hosted on Wikipedia and nobody at Wikipedia controls its content. I suggest you email the video's creator (there's a URL in the file information; that should lead to a "contact" link at that site) and propose the correction. (And in the future, please remember to sign your posts on talk pages.) Jeh (talk) 23:12, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

"Units" section

Exactly everything in this section (Hard disk drive#Units) is in the Binary prefix article, with more detail, context, historical information, and references. Hard disk drive is quite long. I propose that this section be shortened drastically. Jeh (talk) 23:03, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Hello! In my opinion, Hard disk drive § Units section shouldn't be trimmed down, as it describes pretty much only what's specific to hard disk drives. Having all that as part of the article, IMHO, actually improves the readability and provides a broader context. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 08:35, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I think it could be shortened but not drastically; take out some of the history, focus on current unites GB and TB. etc. If I have a moment I may take a hack at it, but maybe Jeh should go first. Tom94022 (talk) 20:40, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

IMHO, having some history is actually rather fine. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 04:57, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

My point is that the history is in the Binary prefix article. Jeh (talk) 07:39, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

That makes sense, but I'd say that the amount of historical description isn't that large in Hard disk drive § Units section, and it helps in providing a broader context. Got it trimmed down a bit, please check it out. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 08:00, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm content with the current shortened version Tom94022 (talk) 19:28, 21 February 2015 (UTC)