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A disk drive is a physical device that reads data from and writes data to a storage disk. While the term originally referred to mechanical drives with spinning platters, it is now used more broadly for any data storage device that functions like a disk.

There are two main types of disk drives, which use different technology to store and retrieve data:

Hard Disk Drive (HDD): This is a traditional, mechanical storage device that uses one or more rapidly spinning platters coated in a magnetic material. An actuator arm with a read/write head moves across the platters' surface to access the data. HDDs are typically cheaper and have higher capacities than solid-state drives, making them suitable for long-term storage and backups.

Solid-State Drive (SSD): This is a modern storage device that uses flash memory with no moving parts. This makes SSDs significantly faster, more durable, and more energy-efficient than HDDs. They have become the standard for primary storage in high-end computers due to their speed.

Drive technology

Disk drives can be categorized by the technology they use, which also dictates the type of disk they can read:

Magnetic drives: These include HDDs and older floppy disk drives, which use magnetism to store data.

Optical drives: These use a laser to read and write data on optical discs, such as CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs.