List characteristics of a hard disk. Define platter. What are the factors that affect a drive’s speed? Define form factor. Explain how a hard disk works. Define read/write head and cylinder. Note the...

List characteristics of a hard disk. Define platter. What are the factors that affect a

drive’s speed? Define form factor. Explain how a hard disk works. Define read/write head

and cylinder. Note the speed at which hard disks rotate. Explain revolutions per minute

(rpm). Illustrate the distance between the hard disk read/write head and the disk surface.

What is the distance between a floppy disk read/write head and the disk surface? Define

head crash. What is a backup and what is its purpose? Explain why access time is faster for

a hard disk than for a floppy disk. Define disk cache. How does disk cache improve access

time? Hard disks sometimes are partitioned, or divided into separate areas that each

function as if it was a separate hard disk drive. Why might a user want to partition a hard

drive?