A hard drive is a fixed device, containing flat magnetic cylinders mounted on a motor. For each cylinder, there is a read and write head that can move to any surface of the cylinder. Mounted typically to the underside of the drive, is a small circuit board to control the hard drive. The cases are made from cast aluminium, due to its non magnetic properties, not affecting the data being stored in magnetic form.[1,5,19]
It is "computer hardware that holds and spins a magnetic or optical disk and reads and writes information on it" [20]
Gregg Williams, 294805, CS_134 Web Report