Choosing the right hard drive is one of the most important aspects of building your own computer from scratch or upgrading your existing computer. Hard drives are required for storing operating system information, as well as programs, photos, music and other electronic data. Sears features a wide array of hard drives for use with most electronic devices.
When choosing the right hard drive, considerations should be made for where the hard drive will be installed and how much storage space you need. Storage capacities for most hard drives vary between 64GB up to 2TB or more. Ordinary hard drives are relatively inexpensive, with large storage capacities available for reasonable prices. On the other hand, solid-state drives can become quite pricey as storage capacity requirements increase.
Internal hard drives come in 3.5" and 2.5" form factors -- the former being used mostly in desktop computers and the latter in laptop computers and other electronic equipment that requires hard drive storage in a slim form factor. These hard drives are designed to be installed inside of the computer or inside of a hard drive enclosure.
External hard drives come in a ready-made enclosure designed for portability and durability. USB, SATA or FireWire cables are used to connect the external hard drive to the computer. Many external hard drives come with an external power supply, although smaller drives are able to run solely on power supplied through the USB ports on the computer.
Solid-state drives are the latest in storage technology, eschewing the physical platters used for ordinary hard drives for NAND flash memory. The greatest benefit of a solid-state drive is a fast read/write access time, much faster than even the fastest ordinary hard drive. Other benefits include greatly reduced power consumption and greater durability since fragile physical platters are replaced with nonmoving flash memory modules.
Desktop and laptop computers are not the only electronic devices that use hard drives. Video gaming consoles such as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 feature built-in hard drives for storing downloadable content and game save data. Hard drive upgrade kits are available for those who want to add more room for their favorite content.
To keep your hard drive operating at its peak performance, you will want to use defragmentation software that helps reduce seek times and extends the longevity of your hard drive. There is no need to defragment a solid-state hard drive since the drive itself is actually designed to distribute data evenly in all sectors in a process known as "wear leveling."
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