Usually hard drives connect to a system via the ubiquitous SATA (Serial ATA) interface, and they don’t require any special software to work properly with current operating systems. Hard-disk drives are available in relatively high capacities too, with today’s largest drives storing up to4TB of data. The technology is mature, reliable, and relatively inexpensive compared with other storage options most hard-disk drives can be had for only a few cents per gigabyte. All hard-disk drives consist of quickly rotating magnetic platters paired with read/write heads that travel over the platters’ surfaces to retrieve or record data. As a result, the term 'hard drive' is now the common descriptor for all storage hardware-the digital equivalent of 'Q-Tip' or 'Band-Aid.' Although modern hard-disk drives are far more advanced and higher-performing than their counterparts from yesteryear, on many levels their basic underlying technology remains unchanged. Hard-disk drives have been the default storage component in desktop and laptop PCs for decades.

Sshd vs hdd benchmark