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Thursday
March 18, 2010 Since 1922 |
Computer guru on how data is stored
By Aaron Barbee
Contributor Published September 19, 2009 Question: What comes after gigabyte? In fact, can you tell me what all this stuff is? I guess what I’m really asking is where are my pictures physically in my computer.
Answer: Computers store information on a device called a hard drive. This hard drive is about the size of a piece of bread and it’s inside the computer. Inside that hard drive it looks like a record player. There’s a metal disk and an arm that reads the data on the disk; just like the needle of a record player. For the data to be read, the metal disk needs to spin like a record needs to spin for the music to be played.
All that information stored on the disk of the hard drive takes up a certain amount of space. However, it’s not really a physical space exactly. Think of the grooves of a record as hitting the record needle and making it vibrate to make a sound. On the hard drive, there are magnetic charges that hit the drive head, and they’re converted to electrical impulses, which translates to your data.
If you were to closely look at a record, you would be able to see the physical grooves that makes up the music. Since the hard drive uses magnetic charges, if you look at the disk of the drive, it is completely flat and looks like nothing is on there. It’s a very bad idea to have strong magnets around your computer, especially the hard drive, because of the magnetism.
Don’t get too worried, though. You would have to place a high-powered magnet directly on the hard drive for it to do any damage to your data. If that were to happen, though, all your data would be irrecoverably gone. So, to be on the safe side, try not to have magnets near your computer especially if they’re very strong.
All these magnetic charges translate into the smallest amount of data; a bit. One magnetic charge equals one bit. There are eight bits in a byte, 1024 bytes in a kilobyte (kb), 1024 kb in a megabyte (mb), 1024 mb in a gigabyte (gb), 1024 gb in a terabyte (tb), 1024 tb in a petabyte (pb), 1024 pb in an exabyte (eb), and 1024 eb in a zettabyte. I don’t even want to calculate how many magnetic charges there are in a zettabyte.
Most pictures take up about one megabyte (depending on how you save it), and most songs take up about three megabytes. In my experience, most customers use up about 10 gigabytes of space on their hard drive. Of that 10 gb, about 70 percent is system data and programs, and about 30 percent is personal pictures, music, documents, etc. I’m sure you’ve heard me plenty of times, but I’ll say it again; back up your data! If you don’t know how, I’ll be glad to help.
Check out my Web site www.TexasComputerGuru.com for supplemental information and previous articles as well.
Aaron Barbee owns Texas Computer Guru, a local computer services company for on-site business and residential needs. He can be contacted at 281-628-5099. E-mail questions for Aaron to sunnews(at)baytownsun.com.
Contributor Published September 19, 2009 Question: What comes after gigabyte? In fact, can you tell me what all this stuff is? I guess what I’m really asking is where are my pictures physically in my computer.
Answer: Computers store information on a device called a hard drive. This hard drive is about the size of a piece of bread and it’s inside the computer. Inside that hard drive it looks like a record player. There’s a metal disk and an arm that reads the data on the disk; just like the needle of a record player. For the data to be read, the metal disk needs to spin like a record needs to spin for the music to be played.
All that information stored on the disk of the hard drive takes up a certain amount of space. However, it’s not really a physical space exactly. Think of the grooves of a record as hitting the record needle and making it vibrate to make a sound. On the hard drive, there are magnetic charges that hit the drive head, and they’re converted to electrical impulses, which translates to your data.
If you were to closely look at a record, you would be able to see the physical grooves that makes up the music. Since the hard drive uses magnetic charges, if you look at the disk of the drive, it is completely flat and looks like nothing is on there. It’s a very bad idea to have strong magnets around your computer, especially the hard drive, because of the magnetism.
Don’t get too worried, though. You would have to place a high-powered magnet directly on the hard drive for it to do any damage to your data. If that were to happen, though, all your data would be irrecoverably gone. So, to be on the safe side, try not to have magnets near your computer especially if they’re very strong.
All these magnetic charges translate into the smallest amount of data; a bit. One magnetic charge equals one bit. There are eight bits in a byte, 1024 bytes in a kilobyte (kb), 1024 kb in a megabyte (mb), 1024 mb in a gigabyte (gb), 1024 gb in a terabyte (tb), 1024 tb in a petabyte (pb), 1024 pb in an exabyte (eb), and 1024 eb in a zettabyte. I don’t even want to calculate how many magnetic charges there are in a zettabyte.
Most pictures take up about one megabyte (depending on how you save it), and most songs take up about three megabytes. In my experience, most customers use up about 10 gigabytes of space on their hard drive. Of that 10 gb, about 70 percent is system data and programs, and about 30 percent is personal pictures, music, documents, etc. I’m sure you’ve heard me plenty of times, but I’ll say it again; back up your data! If you don’t know how, I’ll be glad to help.
Check out my Web site www.TexasComputerGuru.com for supplemental information and previous articles as well.
Aaron Barbee owns Texas Computer Guru, a local computer services company for on-site business and residential needs. He can be contacted at 281-628-5099. E-mail questions for Aaron to sunnews(at)baytownsun.com.