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Spinning Hard Drives

Discussions center on the mechanics, sounds, wear, reliability, and operation of traditional spinning hard disk drives (HDDs), often contrasting them with SSDs and debating their spinning behavior.

➡️ Stable 0.5x Hardware
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Top Contributors

userbinator (41) wtallis (28) jacquesm (18) rbanffy (17) wmf (17)

Keywords

RAM QED CPU SSD HDD OS RPM NAS HD IO drives hard drives drive disk hard drive hard spinning disks rpm motors

Sample Comments

jbverschoor • Dec 10, 2019 • View on HN

I thought it's becasue of spinning disks or tapes.

nathanvanfleet • Sep 6, 2021 • View on HN

That's not how hard drives work

t312227 • Jul 25, 2018 • View on HN

how about a good old hard disk!?

HNisCIS • Jan 13, 2026 • View on HN

Reading the drive is a mechanical process so it would be constantly making noise and wear out components

amelius • May 19, 2025 • View on HN

But a spinning harddrive contains electronics too ...

joggg • Nov 28, 2013 • View on HN

something about the platter in the HD being a magnetic medium...

copperx • Apr 16, 2020 • View on HN

Hard drives shouldn't spin anymore; it's 2020.

philjohn • Mar 2, 2021 • View on HN

perversely, wouldn't spinning drives up and down impact drive life?

jsnider3 • May 6, 2019 • View on HN

For clarity, this is talking about hard drives as distinct from solid state drives.

sildur • Dec 6, 2020 • View on HN

I miss the sound of the hard drive as an indicator of I/O activity.