difference between a hard disk and a thumb drive?

Answer 1

its a lot easier to carry a thumb drive and plug in into different computers.

Answer 2

A hard drive often refers to the hard disk memory located within a computer. A thumb drive is a small external and detachable memory unit. Thumb drives most commonly save data on Flash Memory and are attached by using a computer's USB connection.

Answer 3

A hard disc is a mechanical device, which contains a spinning magnetic recording disc, made either of aluminum or glass. Generally, this records very much like a CD, but can be re-written as often as you like. There is always a hard disc inside your computer - this is where the operating system and other programs are stored - but they can also be external, which is convenient for use on small networks and for back-up purposes.

A thumb drive is usually flash memory. This methodology uses a chip to hold all of the memory, which allows it to be faster than a hard disc. When you turn on your cell phone, flash memory is what is used to quickly get the basic info loaded for you.

In general, hard discs can hold significantly more data than thumb drives. The largest commercial hard discs are about 6 inches long, by 4 inches wide, by 3/4 inches high. Some are as small as 1 inch long, by 3/4 inches wide, by 1/2 inch tall. Considering that many modern devices (iPods, cell phones, PDA's) use hard discs, they need to be fairly small.

Answer 4

A hard disk usually means your internal hard drive in your computer. A thumb drive is about the size of your thumb and can just plug into your USB port and presto, copy files and you have nice data back up. Price goes w/size....can get one gig for around $25 to 30 dollars. To see the thumb (flash or jump same thing) click My Computer and there will be a new letter drive show up. Copy and paste then manipulating the green up and down arrow, select, Cntl + C for copy and go to thumb drive, highlight and Cntl + V for paste.

Answer 5

The hard drive is the disc fixed inside the PC. It stores all data. Thumb drive is a removable drive used for transfering data from one computer to other. It is used through the USB port. It is simple to use. I can give you a link that deals with hard drive problems. Some hard drive problems can be easily fixed yourself by using easily available tools. I found the info at http://fixit.in useful

Answer 6

a hard disk measures about 6" by 6" by 2", is quite heavy and is fixed inside your computer and you can't get at it unless you have had training.
a thumb drive is the size of your thumb, weighs about 50 grams and can be pushed into and taken out of the side or front of youir computer in an instant.

Answer 7

A hard disk is a cd-like device where thumb drives are flash based.

Answer 8

A hard disk drive (HDD, also formerly known as a fixed disk drive) is a digitally encoded non-volatile storage device which stores data on the magnetic surfaces of hard disk platters.

Hard disks were originally developed for use in connection with, or later inside, a single computer. Over time, applications for hard disk drives have expanded beyond computers to include video recorders, audio players, digital organizers, and digital cameras. In 2005 the first cellular telephones to include hard disk drives were introduced by Samsung and Nokia. The emergence of the need for large-scale, reliable storage, independent of a particular device, led to the introduction of configurations such as RAID, hardware such as network attached storage (NAS) devices, and systems such as storage area networks (SANs) for efficient access to large volumes of data.

The capacity of hard drives has grown exponentially over time. With early personal computers, a drive with a 20 megabyte capacity was considered large. In the latter half of the 1990s, hard drives with capacities of 1 gigabyte and greater became available. As of 2006, the "smallest" desktop hard disk still in production has a capacity of 40 gigabytes, while the largest-capacity internal drives are a 3/4 terabyte (750 gigabytes), with external drives at or exceeding one terabyte by using multiple internal disks. These new internal drives increased their storage capacities with Perpendicular recording.

Thumbdrive is your digital lockbox, storing your personal records, digital photos and music. Imagine a USB floppy drive and disk integrated, only more secure, more durable, and at less than one tenth in physical size, packing up to 350 times in capacity. Because thumbdrive does not have any moving parts, it is extremely resistant to vibrations and shocks. Thumbdrive acts just like your hard drive. You can drag and drop files onto it, create, edit, delete files even formatting it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk
computer.howstuffworks.com/hard-disk.htm
www.webopedia.com/TERM/h/hard_disk.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_flash_drive

Answer 9

hard disk is a magnetic media. thumb drive is flash media. hard disk will be fixed in your computer. thumb drive is removable drive. hard disk is cheaper and has larger storage area if u compare flash drive. hard disk can be ide device or sata device or usb device, etc. flash drive will be USB device mostly.

Answer 10

hard drive stores data on it's surface sortof like a cd (It doesn't get burnt in like a cd though). Hard drives have alot of moving parts and a motor to spin the platters. Flash drives have no moving parts at all and store the data on chips (kind of like the RAM in your pc, but it does not get erased when it loses power).