SATA, IDE PATA, SCSI/SAS Hard Disk (HDD) & Solid State Drives (SSD)

This section of this website provides detailed information on the various types of hard disk and SSD drives – internal, external and portable drives – IDE PATA (old technology), SATA (current technology), SCSI/SAS drives (old and new technology, respectively) and the latest-technology solid state drives (SSDs). The categories of these drives are internal – installed inside the computer – external and portable. The Contents menu below gives a good idea about the information provided on each page.

CONTENTS

This page – Page 1. – Click the link to go to that information on this page:
1. – The installation of IDE PATA and SATA hard disk and SSDs
2. – Hard disk drive / SSD / CD-DVD drive problems and solutions
3. – External hard disk drives and USB flash drives
4. – How to find out which hardware and software is installed on a Windows computer
Page 2: Disk Management and Device Manager in Windows 7/8.1/10
Page 3: Useful information on hard disk and SSD drives
Page 4: SSDs – Performance, installation and reviews
Page 5: SATA-to-IDE adapters, SCSI/SAS drives and the Crucial SSD Buying Guide
Page 6: Current HDD and SSD capacities, the 2.19 barrier, NTFS and GPT file systems and 3TB SSDs reviewed
Page 7: IDE and SATA hard disk drives || BIOS/UEFI update might be required for an SSD to work without memory corruption issues
Page 8: How to find out if a PC can support an SSD || SSD Tweaker || Smart Response Technology (SRT) || TRIM and Firmware Updates
Page 9: SATA versions and backwards compatibility – How hard disk and SSD drives work
Page 10: How to make sure that an SSD drive is set up optimally in Windows 7 & 8.1 & 10 to increase its limited lifespan
Page 11: How best to wipe the data on hard disk and SSD drives

Posts on hard disk and SSD drives on this website

POST: Using my PC is difficult – Hard drive hogged for 15 to 20 minutes at startup
POST: Replace a dead hard disk drive with a laptop model
POST: How to replace a dead laptop hard disk drive with another hard drive or an SSD

eMMC storage is not an SSD

If you come across a cheap laptop or tablet that uses eMMC storage that holds the operating system (Windows 10, Linux, Android), it is not a type of SSD drive, it is an eMMC chip soldered into the device’s motherboard. That chip does not have a controller and does not use firmware that hard disk drives and SSDs use.

Wikipedia: “Almost all mobile phones and tablets used this form of flash for main storage up to 2016, in 2016 UFS started to take control of the market. The latest version of the eMMC standard (JESD84-B51) by JEDEC is version 5.1 released February 2015, with speeds rivaling discrete SATA-based SSDs (400 MB/s).”

Laptops that use eMMC storage can run Windows 10 and Microsoft Office very well. A good example is the

_________________________________

The installation of IDE PATA and SATA hard disk and SSDs

Installation information of all hardware components and installing Windows is provided in the Build Your Own PC section, in the Hardware menu.

Installing SATA hard disk drives, SSD and CD/DVD/Blu-ray drives –

https://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/hardware/build-your-own-pc/11/

_________________________________

Hard disk drive /SSD/CD/DVD drive problems and solutions

The Hard Disk Drive and SSD Problems and CD/DVD Drive Problems sections of this website provide solutions to many common and less common problems with those drives. Taken together, you should be able to find all of the information you need to know about computer drives and their problems in the above-mentioned sections of this website.

_________________________________

External hard disk drives and USB flash drives

External hard disk drives and USB flash drives have their own pages in the Hardware menu – Hard Disk and SSD Drives => External Hard Disk Drives => USB Flash Drives. Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices are dealt with in the the Wired and Wireless Networking pages, also in the Hardware menu.

_________________________________

How to find out which hardware and software is installed on a Windows computer

If you need information on what is installed on a computer, the Belarc Advisor from belarc.com is a free tool (look under Free Download on its website) that identifies a Windows computer’s hardware (motherboard, graphics card, hard disk drive(s), DVD drive, etc.) and software (version of Windows, applications, etc.) and even software licences, including the Windows Product Key, which is always required when reinstalling Windows. Look on the left hand side of the Belarc Advisor screen for “Software Licenses”.

Page 2: Disk Management in Windows 7/8.1/10