Desktop Hard Drives

The hard drive is the place on the computer where all of your programs and data are stored. Hard drives are categorized by speed and capacity.

Speed
Hard drive speed determines how fast a computer can access the data stored on the drive. For desktops, in the Spring of 2008, the most common speed is 7200RPM (rotations per minute). 7200RPM is more than enough for the average user. High-performance drives in the market run at 10000RPM, but these are expensive and only recommended for the computer enthusiast.

Capacity
Hard drive capacity is measured in Gigabytes (GB) and is the amount of data that can be stored on the drive. Current desktop hard drives range in capacity from as little as 80GB to as much as 1TB (1000GB). When buying a hard drive, keep in mind what your computer will be used for. If you will just be word processing and surfing the web, not much space will be needed, so 100-150GB will be sufficient. For storing games, movies, and music, more space will be needed, so you may want to consider 250GB-500GB of storage space.

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Last Updated: 05/14/2008