Look Inside Running Data Storage Devices
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Have you ever wondered how your hard drive looks from the inside? Or where exactly does your tiny 128-GB SD card stores thousands of pictures and videos? The concept of data storage is fascinating, but most people never really get a chance to fully understand it. In an attempt to change that, we developed DriveSaver®, the first and the only hard drive simulator, available for iPhone.
Using it, you can simulate various data storage devices like hard drives, solid-state drives, USBs, SD cards, and even iPhones.
But that’s not it, the application also allows you to crash a storage device. Many of us have heard a failing hard drive at some point in our lives; the clicking, whirring, clunking sounds that remind us of the nearing end. But most never got to see the circumstances that instigated the chaos. DriveSaver® sorts that out for us as well, by simulating different kinds of hard drive failures. See what happens when the head suddenly stops spinning; see what goes wrong when a hard disk becomes contaminated, or see a hard drive’s rotating platter completely get destroyed in the event of a head crash. In the following sections, we will talk about the various features of the hard drive simulator in detail:
HARD DISK DRIVE
You might have a vague idea of how a typical hard drive rotates, but now you get to witness it spin, with all its glory, first-hand. You can flip it to see how it looks turned around, or you can just format it to see how the data gets erased.
If you want to learn more than just the mechanics of a modern-day hard drive, you can click on the “Play Demo” button to start learning more about its different parts. Click anywhere on the device and you will be told the part’s name and function. After you have played the demo, you will be able to tell the platter from the actuator, and the voice coil from the air filter.
SOLID STATE DRIVE
DriveSaver® also allows you to simulate solid state devices. SSD drives are slowly replacing the traditional hard drives because of their faster speeds, so this is a great chance for you to see exactly how the two are different. The data is arranged on memory chips instead of a platter, and there are no moving parts whatsoever!
Formatting a SSD is also a totally different experience because of the distinct distribution and storage of data. Click anywhere on the simulated device to learn more about its different parts, including the flash memory chip, printed circuit board, and data and power interfaces.
USB
Unlike hard drives, many of us have actually seen USBs transfer data before our eyes. DriveSaver® gives you a chance to look at their insides, and learn so much more about them. Using the simulator, you can see where the memory chip is located, and where exactly on the circuit board, the data controller lies. You can even see how a USB data format happens behind the scenes!
SD CARD
These tiny specks of plastic-coated silicon can store hundreds of Gigabytes of data. Within a SD card, small memory chips are located on the printed circuit board, and you can see the exact layout using DriveSaver®. Feel free to see what goes on behind the scenes when you choose to format an SD card.
iPHONE
We would never want to break into our iPhone, so this is a fantastic way of looking at one from the inside. See where the two battery cells are located, where the Wi-Fi module lies, and how the processor is connected to the main circuit board.
Throw some water on its bare body (without any monetary repercussions), or completely destroy it by clicking on the “Damage” button. This is your personal demolition playground and there are no rules whatsoever!
Stack the Hard Drives
in Your Favor
A RAID allows you to harness the potential of multiple interconnected hard drives, in an attempt to create a more reliable data storage system. With the DriveSaver® RAID calculator, you can create different RAID configurations (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 10, RAID 50, RAID 60), with various hard drive arrangements. Choose different capacity hard drives and observe how the data gets striped depedning on the capacities you select.
You will know how much usable space you have, and how much will be used for protection and/or replication. Go through trial and error until you achieve the RAID configuration that’s ideal for your needs.
(Note: Results generated by the RAID calculator should only be used as references.)
Crash Simulator
Some people just want to watch the world burn (or hard drives crash). There is something oddly satisfying about seeing perfectly functioning mechanical devices falter and fail, all of a sudden. DriveSaver® allows you to crash a hard drive in the following ways:
Clicker Failure
This failure leads to the hard drive producing discordant noises, as a result of the head going haywire. It can be caused by firmware corruption, damage to the head or media, or severe impact. This often renders a hard drive incapable of serving any legible information.
No Spin/ Seized Motor
In this scenario, you can hear a zapping sound coming from the hard drive. The heads and the media surface appear to be glued together and the hard disk stops doing the one thing it must do to survive: spin.
Spin Up / Spin Down
When a hard disk starts spinning up and down at will, it sounds like the dying ignition of a tiny car. For a moment, you see it spin one way, and in the next, the other. It would be excruciating to see your actual hard drive try its best but still fail, but since you didn’t pay any money for this virtually simulated experience, all you feel is that unjustifiable feeling of satisfaction, and a reminder to back up your critical data!
Contamination Failure
It’s not recommended to remove a hard drive from its casing. You run the risk of contaminating it or damaging it to a non-recoverable state. However, if you really can’t fight the feeling of seeing a hard drive’s insides, try this crash scenario. You will be allowed to touch a hard drive and see how it crashes from contamination as a result.
SSD Failure
SSDs are a growing substitute for traditional hard disk drives, if you are looking to boost performance and reliability. However, they are still prone to failures from electrostatic discharge, or firmware corruption. Use our SSD failure feature to see just how easy it is to make an SSD fail if you strip off its covering and have a go at its components.
Head Crash Failure
The most lethal kind of hard disk failure occurs when there is a coming together of the read write head and the rotating platter. The failure starts slowly but before you know it, consumes the entirety of the hard drive, rendering it useless. Witness this absolute mayhem using DriveSaver®!
Need Data Recovery?
Gruesome failures don’t mean that your data is lost forever. As long as there’s DriveSavers, there’s always hope! We have been in the data recovery business for over three decades, and we specialize in recovering data from the deepest pits of uncertainty.
If your hard disk has failed, or if your memory card appears to be corrupted, or if you accidentally deleted all the data on your phone; fret not! We will help you reclaim everything that you lost! Call us at 800-440-1904 to request a free estimate today!
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