In computing, a hard disk drive (HDD) is a data storage device that uses magnetic storage to store digital information. The first commercial hard disk drive was released by IBM in 1957.

A hard disk drive is composed of one or more rigid (hard) disk platters on a spindle, with read/write head on an arm that accesses the data while the platters are spinning. Data is accessed in a random-access manner, meaning that individual blocks of data can be stored or retrieved in any order. Hard disk drives are used in a wide range of applications, from personal computers to …