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  1. What is a Hard Disk Drive? | HDDs Explained | Crucial.com

    HDD is a common abbreviation that stands for Hard Disk Drive. HDDs are non-volatile storage devices, meaning they retain stored data even when power isn't being supplied.

  2. SSD vs. HDD: Know the Difference - Crucial.com

    Sep 16, 2024 · Hard disk drives have been around for more than 50 years, steadily increasing their storage capacity and decreasing their physical size. HDDs rely on spinning disks, or …

  3. What is an SSD (Solid State Drive)? | Crucial.com

    Oct 20, 2025 · An SSD or HDD serves as your computer's long-term memory, storing and remembering files even when your device is off. It works alongside your system's memory …

  4. How to defrag a computer hard drive - Crucial.com

    Aug 8, 2024 · Hard disk drives fragment data because they are random by nature. Consisting of an actuator, platter, spindle, actuator arm, and read/write head (among other parts), hard …

  5. What is Trim? | Crucial.com

    Flash memory, which is what SSDs are made of, cannot overwrite existing data the way a hard disk drive can. Instead, solid state drives need to erase the now invalid data.

  6. SSD vs HDD for Gaming, Which is Better? | Crucial.com

    Sep 24, 2025 · Hard disk drives (HDDs) have been around for more than 50 years, and the technology behind them is well known and well tested. HDDs rely on moving parts with an …

  7. SMART and SSDs | Crucial.com

    SMART began as a way for disk drive manufacturers to tell computers about the health of their hard disk drives (HDDs). Although some parameters were outlined, each disk manufacturer …

  8. What is a portable SSD? | Crucial.com

    Oct 10, 2025 · An HDD stores data on a spinning platter accessed by a mechanical arm, whereas an SSD uses a grid of electrical cells to store data like a giant flash drive. For both internal and …

  9. An Overview of Hardware Encryption | Crucial.com

    With an SED, the encryption is always on, meaning when data is written to the SED it is encrypted by the controller and then it is decrypted when read from the SED.

  10. What is virtual memory? Definition & Explanation | Crucial.com

    May 12, 2025 · Virtual memory organizes information on the hard drive in the form of pages, hence the term "paging file" referring to the size and name of these pages. In contrast, …