Hard drive teardown

Bill opens up a computer hard drive to show how it is engineered. He describes how the "head" reads the magnetic information on the disk; reveals how a voice coil motor and a slider controls the position of that head. He also discusses how smooth a disk must be, and briefly mentions a mathematical technique that allows engineers to pack more information on a drive.

• Category

  Science & Technology

[CumQuaT1337]

It's great to see how Mark Hamill landed on his feet after Star Wars.

[engineerguyvideo]

It's been tough, but I enjoy this work. The hour are better than making feature films.

[ShotOfVenom]

nothing like that... o.O

[polka23dot]

When William S. Hammack made this video, the technology he described was already obsolete - all hard disk drives used giant magnetoresistance to read data.

[Voidlord1]

amazing... and i still didn't understand half the stuff

[FriendlyNigger]

omg he looks like my old science teacher

omg imma throw up

[NITECOREPD]

solid state drive is the future

[RiaRadioFMHD773]

I foresee a near future of computers without hard drives as flash memory becomes ever larger, rivaling smaller HDs making them and their moving parts obsolete.

[GinFirdaus]

i keep wondering.. now i know. tq

[iloverock6556]

Vsauce.

[mariana perez]

Amazing! I like the way he explains it. Is good to know how the hard drive works and his the function.

[Mariandree Morales]

Its amazing to see how the hardrive of the computer is and how it works because most of people doesn´t pay attention to this, but without the hardrive the computer couldn´t work well. It is difficult to understand all this stuff but this video helped a lot. Its incredible how a very small box can make a computer work well. It was amazing to know how this worked.

[Melanie B]

Wow you´re amazing! This video was very interesting, it help us to learn how the hard drive works and what it does. We discover a new law, faradays law, thanks! Melanie, Dulce, Estefania and Xime