Talk:Hard disk drive

"Spinning rust" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Spinning rust has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 May 27 § Spinning rust until a consensus is reached. Rusalkii (talk) 18:49, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

SMH. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 18:16, 11 June 2025 (UTC).

Is this correct?

"they are replacing HDDs in applications where speed, power consumption, small size, high capacity and durability" - Capacity is the only reason to buy HDDs these days. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 18:16, 11 June 2025 (UTC).

Yes it is, right now the highest capacity disk drives are SSDs so the primary reasons to buy HDDs is Cost/TB and maybe long-term reliability (bearings are more reliable than flash cells) Tom94022 (talk) 18:26, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

Lead section restructuring

In Re @Tom94022’s edit https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hard_disk_drive&diff=1337849069&oldid=1337499775: I think it’s very important to have a picture of a portable hard drive in an enclosure with USB. Because that’s the form of an SSD the average consumer is most familiar with. It’s entirely possible that someone will search for information on HDDs, find this article, and conclude from the lead section images that the subject of this article is unrelated to what they’re looking for. Anselm Schüler (talk) 21:50, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

I still have some external USB HDs. I can get a picture tomorrow. I have one that will fit in the hand and some that are larger - portable, but usually stay in one place. Which do you want pictured? (or both?) Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 05:08, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

I got a couple of photos but I haven't had a chance to upload them yet. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 15:36, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

I've got some pictures too, I was replying since you removed some of them, to prevent any potential edit warring. I can add mine back. Anselm Schüler (talk) 12:59, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Portable hard drives in enclosures

We already have this picture in the Form factors section. Do you want to promote this to the lead image? I'm not sure I support that. Readers are then seeing the enclosure, not the drive. ~Kvng (talk) 21:54, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

@Kvng: Yes. It is my perception that laypeople generally do not view the enclosure and the drive inside it as separate entities. To the non-specialist, a hard drive enclosure simply is a hard drive. A hard drive without an enclosure is some kind of specialist hard drive. Similarly, to the non-specialist, an M.2 SSD board is just as much “an SSD” as such an SSD in a USB-connected enclosure.

However, I will admit that if we take that interpretation as relevant, really we ought to include some disclaimer in the article about SSDs since laypeople will also use the term “hard drive” to refer to SSDs.

Maybe this article could be moved to Hard disk drive (storage technology) and a disambiguation page could be added.Anselm Schüler (talk) 00:28, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

Edit help

I'm attempting to update the 1980s section to show the disrepancy in disk sizes between PCs and mainframes. My nested {{efn}} template is not being handled properly and I don't see my error. the text in question is

By 1986 10MB was the most commonly used{{efn|For personal computers; on mainframes disks were typically larger. On [[IBM mainframe]]s the smallest disk drive still on the market was 35 MB, and disks with sizes in the 100s of megabytes{{efn{{!}}The disks supported on the [[S/370]] were
{{(!}} class="wikitable"
{{!+}} S/370 volume sizes
{{!-}}
! Model !! Volumes per Unit !! Volume Size in MB !! Announced
{{!-}}
{{!}} 3310 {{!!}} 1 {{!!}} 64.5 {{!!}} January 30, 1979
{{!-}}
{{!}} 3330-1<br>3333-1 {{!!}} 2 {{!!}} 100 {{!!}} June 1970
{{!)}}
{{))}}
were more common.}}

This renders as

By 1986 10MB was the most commonly used{{efn|For personal computers; on mainframes disks were typically larger. On IBM mainframes the smallest disk drive still on the market was 35 MB, and disks with sizes in the 100s of megabytes{{efn|The disks supported on the S/370 were

S/370 volume sizes

Model	Volumes per Unit	Volume Size in MB	Announced
3310	1	64.5	January 30, 1979
3330-1 3333-1	2	100	June 1970

}}

Once that is fixed I will need to add more rows with data from [[History of IBM magnetic disk drives}} and reword to exclude fixed-head disks, which were smaller.

Thanks. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:26, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Notes