2025-04-02

Head-Actuator Assembly

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM05 mins

We often call the Head-Actuator Assembly as head stacks or only heads for short. In fact, we make a mistake in some way. Let’s take a look at a head-actuator Assemble on the flowing photo:

Mostly, each platter is accessed for read /write operations using two read/write heads, one mounted on the top of the platter and another on the bottom. These heads are mounted onto arms that allow them to be moved from the outer tracks of the hard drive to the inner tracks and back again. The arms are controlled using a device called an actuator that positions the arms to the appropriate track on the disk. The read/write heads don’t touch the platter when the platter is spinning at full speed; instead, they float on an extremely thin cushion of air (10 millionths of an inch, Winchester disk drive). That’s why power surge may cause Head crash and platter scratch due to the fast rotating rolling of platters.

Notice: In 1973, IBM introduced the IBM 3340 “Winchester” disk drive, the first significant commercial use of low mass and low load heads with lubricated media. All modern disk drives now use this technology and/or derivatives thereof. Project head designer/lead designer Kenneth Haughton named it after the Winchester 30-30 rifle after the developers called it the “30-30” because of it was planned to have two 30 MB spindles; however, the actual product shipped with two spindles for data modules of either 35 MB or 70 MB.

How they work?
The hard disk platters are accessed for read and write operations using the read/write heads mounted on the top and bottom surfaces of each platter. Obviously, the read/write heads don’t just float in space; they must be held in an exact position relative to the surfaces they are reading, and furthermore, they must be moved from track to track to allow access to the entire surface of the disk. The heads are mounted onto a structure that facilitates this process. Often called the head assembly or actuator assembly (or even the head-actuator assembly), it is comprised of several different parts.

The heads themselves are mounted on head sliders. The sliders are suspended over the surface of the disk at the ends of the head arms. The head arms are all mechanically fused into a single structure that is moved around the surface of the disk by the actuator. (Sort of like “the wrist connected to the hand”, why I say it is a hand because it is very skillful and ingenious and the upper site is Arm: D).They play an important role in the function and performance of the drive. In particular, advances in slider, arm and actuator design are critical to improving the seek time of a hard disk.

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IDrive Offers Universal Cloud Backup For Unlimited Number Of Devices

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM05 mins

IDrive announced today that they will be offering a single plan with which subscribers can back up an unlimited number of PCs, Macs, Smartphones and Tablets.

idrive-logoThe plans are branched into two categories: home/personal users and business users. For the personal users, available plans ar $4.95/month for 150 GBs and $14.95/month for 500 GBs. Additionally, personal users may subscribe and receive their first 5GB for free. Under the business plan, subscribers can get anywhere from 50 GBs of storage for $9.95/month to 1 TB for $79.95/month.

“We’re excited about the latest updates to IDrive, with a single account new customers can back up as many computers and mobile devices as they want and then view their files from any of those connected devices or on our website. Plus, the mobile app can now back up contacts, photos and videos and make them available online as well.” said Raghu Kulkarni, founder and CEO of Pro Softnet Corp.

“Many backup services offer ‘unlimited’ storage space for a single computer at a flat rate, like $50 per year per computer – it sounds like a good deal at first, but back up 100 GBs from that one computer and you pay $50/year, back up just 50 GBs and you still have to pay $50/year: that’s where they get you, not only that, ‘unlimited’ storage plans almost always have very limited file retention, meaning they automatically remove data from your backup after you delete the files from your computer, usually just 30 days later. The question is, ‘What use is a backup that doesn’t contain files you accidentally deleted, say, six months ago?’ On the other hand, IDrive allows people to actually use all of the online storage they are paying for.” said Stephen Gold, Business Development Manager.

For those unfamiliar with IDrive’s stats, a quick run-down of their features:

  • Get full access to files from any PC, Mac, iOS or Android device,
  • Share any file/folder using an email address – easily swap large files with others,
  • Intelligent incremental backups/restores over a secure connection,
  • Available private key encryption for maximum security,
  • “True Archive” storage – data is never automatically deleted and the last 30 versions of each file are held without counting against GBs stored,
  • Continuous Data Protection for real-time backup of commonly used files,
  • No file size or type limitations – no bandwidth throttling,
  • Rapid Serve Restore – large restores can be physically shipped for quick disaster recovery,
  • IDrive builds its own hardware and software; the speed and performance can rarely be matched,
  • Live phone and 24-hour chat support.

IDrive also has a mobile app available so users can access their account and share files when they’re away from their computers. Users can back up contact information, photos and videos over a Wi-Fi or 3G connection to the IDrive cloud from iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices running iOS 4.0 or later as well as Google Android devices running 1.6 or later. The information is then made available via other connected computers and mobile devices as well as on the IDrive website.

About IDrive:

IDrive Online Backup is an industry-leading solution for online backup for PCs, Macs and Smart Phones including iPhones, Blackberries and Android based Phones.

Related post: Top 5 Online Backup Services

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