1. Hard Drives & RAID PM Video 10:28
1.5 Install and configure storage devices and use appropriate media
PM Video 10:28

2. Selecting a Hard Drive
Some considerations when selecting a hard drive:
Drive capacity
Today’s hard drives range from 60 GB – 10 TB
Spindle speed (measured in RPM)
Common spindle speeds are: 3600, 5400, 7200, 10,000, and 15,000 RPM
The higher the RPMs, the faster the drive
Interface standard
Make sure to use standards the motherboard supports
Cache or buffer size
Ranges from 2 MB to 64 MB

3. Before Installing a SATA Hard Drive
Be aware that some SATA drives have 2 power connectors
Choose only 1 to use
Never install 2 power cords at the same time because you risk damaging the drive
If you have a SATA drive but have a PATA connector (or vice versa)
Purchase an adapter to make the drive fit the motherboard connection
Can also purchase a SATA and/or PATA controller card

6. Steps to Install a SATA Drive
Turn off the computer
Decide which bay will hold the drive
Slide the drive into the bay and secure it
Use correct motherboard SATA connector
Connect a 15-pin SATA OR 5-pin Molex power connector to the drive
Verify drive recognized correctly via BIOS setup
Check all connections and power up the system

7. Before Installing a PATA Drive
Open the case and decide how to configure drive(s)
Set the jumpers on the drive(s)
To determine correct master/slave configuration look at the front of the drive
If you only have 1 hard drive, set the drive’s jumpers to master
Most drives have a diagram on the sealed housing that explains how to set the jumpers properly
If you have 2 drives, set 1 to master and 1 to slave

8. A PATA drive most likely will have diagrams of jumper settings for master and slave options printed on the drive housing

9. Use Cable Select to Install a PATA Drive
Some PATA hard drives use a setting called cable select to be used instead of master and slave jumpers
The position on the cable determines which drive will be master or slave
For example, master is on the end of the cable and slave is connected in the middle
To use cable select you must set both drives as cable select and use a special “cable-select” cable
A cable with one pinhole through the wire is a “cable-select” cable

10. A special “cable-select” cable can be used instead of master and slave configurations on a PATA hard drive

11. Steps to Install a PATA Drive
Decide whether to connect the data cable before or after inserting the hard drive inside the computer case
Connect the data cable to IDE connector on motherboard
Install a molex power connection to each drive
Before replacing computer case cover, verify installation

12. S.M.A.R.T. – Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology
S.M.A.R.T. YT Video 7:21
S.M.A.R.T. is a function of the BIOS and is used to predict when a hard drive is likely to fail
S.M.A.R.T. – Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology
For HDDs S.M.A.R.T. monitors mechanical activities of the drive and for SSDs it monitors wear leveling

13. To do a quick S.M.A.R.T. check without installing any third-party software, you can use a few commands included with Windows
Open a command prompt window and type: “wmic” (press enter) then type “diskdrive get model, name, size, status”
If everything is working properly, you should see the status OK displayed
Other statuses can indicate problems or errors retrieving S.M.A.R.T. information

14. What is the Most Valuable Part of a PC?

15. Protecting Data
Option 2: Use 2 or more drives to store your data in what is known as a RAID array
Option 1: You can do backups and when a hard drive dies, reinstall the OS and restore data from a backup
You need to have a method to prevent data loss
Losing data can put a company out of business
One of the most expensive parts of a PC is data

16. Protecting Data with RAID YT Video 3:11 PM Video 5:54
RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks)
Also: Redundant Array of Independent Disks
A technology that configures 2 or more hard drives to work together as an array of drives
All of the drives in an array connect to a controller
Why use RAID?
To improve fault tolerance by writing 2 copies of data, each to a different hard drive
To improve performance by writing data to 2 or more hard drives so that 1 drive is not excessively used

17. RAID controller provides 4 SATA internal connectors

18. Types of RAID 1 5
There are many types of RAID, but the A+ exam focuses on RAID:
1 + 0
NOT RAID: Spanning – sometimes called JBOD (just a bunch of disks)
Uses 2 hard drives to behave like 1 drive
When 1 drive is full, data simply overflows into the next

19. RAID 0 – Disk Striping RAID 0 – uses 2 or more physical disks
I remember this as 0 level of redundancy
Writes to physical disks evenly so that no 1 disk receives all activity
Windows calls RAID 0 a striped volume
It does not provide data redundancy; if any 1 drive fails, all data is lost

20. RAID 0 (STRIPING)

21. RAID 1 – Mirroring (or Duplexing)
RAID 1: Mirroring or Duplexing – uses 2 or more physical disks with 1 or 2 controllers
Duplicates data on 1 drive to another drive and is used for fault tolerance (mirroring)
RAID 1 – Mirroring (or Duplexing)
Storage space is lost because data is duplicated
Example: You need 2, 100 GB drives to store 100 GB of data
RAID 1 can be set up to use an additional raid controller (duplexing)
With 2 drives on separate controllers, the system will continue to operate even if 1 of the controllers stops working

22. RAID 1 - Mirroring Drives
RAID 1 - Duplexing Drives

23. Sound confusing? 4 + X = 9 (1 DISK FAILURE) Y + X = 9 (2 DISKS FAIL)
RAID 5 – Parity Checking
Sound confusing?
4 + X = 9 (1 DISK FAILURE)
RAID 5: uses 3 or more physical disks
Parity data is stored on a different disk for each write operation
Data is striped across drives and uses parity checking
Data is not duplicated but when 1 drive fails, the array can calculate the missing data on the fly
Y + X = 9 (2 DISKS FAIL)

24. RAID 1+0 Combination: RAID 1 (mirroring) RAID 0 (striping)
RAID 10: RAID 1+0 (pronounced RAID one zero)
Combination: RAID 1 (mirroring) RAID 0 (striping)
Takes at least 4 disks and is the most expensive RAID to implement
A RAID 10 will always have an even number of disks

25. Hardware RAID vs Software RAID
RAID can be implemented through hardware or software but hardware outperforms software
A RAID hardware implementation involves:
A Hardware RAID controller or RAID controller card
Motherboard does the work and Windows is unaware of the hardware RAID implementation
Software implementation uses the operating system
For the best RAID performance all hard drives in an array should be identical in brand, size, speed, and other features

26. Troubleshooting Hard Drives PM Video 7:25