About Mass Storage Devices
Instead of delving into the process of mass storage device data recovery, we’d like to show you what a mass data storage device is first. A mass storage device refers to a device that is equipped with a large capacity. Just because of it, mass storage device is used as the auxiliary memory to compensate for the computer’s inadequacy – the capacity of main memory is limited. Magnetic disk, tape, and optical disk are the three main kinds of mass storage devices people often use. But now, since the tape is relatively out of date, we will focus on just magnetic disks and optical disks in this article.
In fact, a mass storage device has many other alternative names, such as mass storage, mass memory, bulk storage, bulk memory, large memory, and large capacity storage. The most obvious advantage of a mass storage device when compared to main memory lies in its excellent portability. We can easily connect the mass storage device to or plug it out from computer so that we could do a good job in managing our personal & business data or study material.
On the contrary, we have discovered the biggest disadvantage of mass storage devices – the relatively long response time. Computers’ main memory only needs to finish electronic operations, so it has a fast running and responding speed as long as the computer is in good condition. However, for the mass storage device, the corresponding speed is a little bit slower since you know, mechanical movement is generally involved. Besides, it increases the risk of data loss, obviously, since the device may be broken during moving process.
Based on this, plenty of users put forward the question – if the mass storage device which includes their valuable data is damaged somehow, is it possible for them to complete mass storage device data recovery without others’ help?
To be honest, there’s no specific answer to such kind of question since whether successful data recovery can be done or not largely depends on the damage degree of the device and what users have done to that device after data loss happened. Based on this, our suggestions are: protecting your device carefully especially when moving it around, forming the habit of backing up important data regularly, stopping using the device immediately after discovering data loss on it, and choosing a reliable product to get mass storage device data recovery done ASAP.
Now, let’s turn our attention to the two main kinds of mass storage devices – magnetic disk and optical disk.
Mass Storage Device Data Recovery
Hard disk drives, as one of the most common mass storage devices, are widely used to store crucial files. It is necessary and significant for hard disk users to know how to recover data from it when the disk is broken, corrupted, formatted, virus-infected, etc. MiniTool Power Data Recovery, a specifically designed Windows data recovery software, can be your optimal choice.
This software is able to retrieve data from USB mass storage device, optical disks, external hard drives, and other Windows-detected devices. You can get MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free first to scan the target partition and try to recover files.
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Step 1. Use MiniTool Power Data Recovery to scan the target partition.
Suppose you have downloaded and installed MiniTool Power Data Recovery on your computer, you can now launch the software to enter its main interface. All the detected partitions are listed under the Logical Drives section. You can choose the partition where your lost files are stored and click Scan.
If you don’t remember the location of your lost files, change to the Devices tab and select the hard disk or USB mass storage device to scan the entire disk, but this will take a longer time to complete the scan process.
Step 2. Locate your wanted files with multiple features.
There should be a large number of files on the result page. Files are classified by their paths into three folders in general: Deleted Files, Lost Files, and Existing Files. Expanding those folders one by one to find your files.
There are some other features that can help you locate the required files swiftly. The Filter function allows you to set some filter conditions to narrow down the file list, such as file size, file category, file type, and file last modified date. If you need to find a specific file type, change to the Type tab where files are sorted by the file type and file formats.
More specifically, the Search feature enables you to locate one file by using its file name. Then, the software will only display files that match the condition. Afterward, you can double-click on the file to verify its file content.
Step 3. Select a proper destination to complete the mass storage device data recovery task.
Tick files you want to restore on the result page and click the Save button. In the prompt window, you should select a new destination that is different from the original file path for those recovered files to avoid data overwriting.
When the data recovery process is completed, a window will prompt up to inform you. You can close the software and head to the chosen destination to check your files.
Since you are running the free edition of this software, you should know that this edition only has 1GB of free data recovery capacity. You need to get an advanced edition to break the limit.
Introduction to the Structure and Performance of Magnetic Disk
In this section, we’ll show users the structure of magnetic disk in order to lay a foundation for magnetic disk recovery. So, users who have seen this will not ask questions like can you recover data from a bad hard drive or not. Then, we’ll tell users how to define a good magnetic disk by looking at 4 main parameters.
1. Magnetic Disk Structure
According to statistics, magnetic disk is the most common form of mass storage device used currently. A magnetic disk is often provided with a thin rotating platter (platters), which is (are) used to save data, a magnetic head, which is used to read data, and an actuator arm, which is used to help magnetic head locate the accurate location of certain data.
The magnetic read and write head is positioned above or below the platter so that it will rotate along with the platter and its rotational locus forms lots of concentric circles, which are what we call magnetic tracks. The position of read and write head is changing by the actuator arm, so we can read data from different concentric tracks.
In many cases, a disk storage system is composed of a plurality of platters mounting on a common shaft: one on top of another, leaving enough space between them for read and write head sliding. A large amount of information can be saved on one track; the total size is even more than ordinary users can imagine. Each track is subdivided into arcs, which are known as sectors.
In the same disk system, each track contains the same number of sectors and each sector contains the same number of bits. This implies: the bits in each sector which is located on the track nearing the disc center are more intensive than bits on peripheral track sectors. However, the number of tracks on each platter and the number of sectors on each track vary a lot in different disk systems.
Information is often stored on a magnetic disk in the unit of block and one information block can contain either just one sector or multiple sectors. The length of access information block, platter number, track number, and sector number should all be given when information is exchanging between magnetic disk and main memory. In fact, these parameters form the actual “Address” to access disk memory.
2. Magnetic Disk Performance
To tell the truth, the performance of a disk storage system is mainly measured by the following 4 parameters: recording density, storage capacity, addressing time, and data transfer rate.
>> Recording density: recording density is also known as storage density and is usually represented by track density plus bit density. It refers to the number of tracks per unit length along the radial direction of the disk; the unit of track density is tracked per inch (TPI). Bit density refers to the number of bits per unit length along the track direction; the unit of it is bits per inch (BPI).
>> Storage capacity: the storage capacity of a magnetic disk actually refers to the amount of useful information that can be stored on the disk; the storage capacity is represented in the unit of byte and it can be calculated through this formula:
- C=n*K*S*b
- C stands for storage capacity;
- n represents the number of platters used to store information;
- K stands for the number of tracks on each platter;
- S represents the number of sectors on each track;
- b refers to the number of bytes that can be stored in each sector.
>> Addressing time: addressing time refers to the time which is needed for the magnetic head to reach the required read/write position from the start position. It includes two parts – seek time and average latency (rotation delay or latency time); seek time refers to the time needed by the head to find a certain track while average latency refers to the average time spent waiting for the desired read/write sector to rotate to just below magnetic head.
Since the time needed by magnetic head to wait different sectors to reach the specified position is different, so we generally take half of the time used by platter to rotate a circle as the average latency. As a result, the average latency is obviously related to the rotational speed of the disk, while seek time is determined by the disk performance, which largely depends on the disk manufacturer.
>> Data transfer rate: data transfer rate refers to the number of bytes read or written by the head per second after it finds the correct address. Magnetic disks are divided into hard disk and floppy disk according to different storage media.
The hard disk uses the aluminum platter, which is coated with a magnetic layer, as the substrate. The read and write head of the hard disk is floating on the platter and it can move along the radial direction. Even the micro dust particles are not allowed to enter the space between the read and write head and platter. In addition to that, vibration proof also plays a very important role in preventing disk scratch accidents caused by read-and-write head contact with a platter, which is rotating at a high speed while working.
Yet, floppy disk uses plastic platters, both surfaces of which are coated with a magnetic layer, as the substrate. Floppy disk is very soft and it is often encapsulated in a special plastic or paper box. The commonly used 3.5-inch floppy disk has a capacity of 1.44MB and it is encapsulated in a plastic box. The paper-packaged 8-inch and 5.25-inch floppy disks have already become out of date. Now, there appears a kind of Zip disk, whose capacity can reach several hundred MB.
Introduction to the Optical Disk and Its Common Types
Optical disk is also a common storage medium we can see easily in daily life; it reads and writes information by taking advantage of optical and electrical principle. Being made of reflective material, the optical disk often stores data by making some changes on the surface. When the optical disk is rotating, the laser beam will irradiate the reflective surface with information stored on it. In this way, data can be recognized and read according to changes in the strength of reflected light.
Data is stored on an optical disk in a single spiral track and this is totally different from tracks on magnetic disks. The spiral track stretches from the inside to the outside of the disk and it is also divided into different sectors, just like in a magnetic disk, and the capacity of each sector is 2KB.
3 ordinary types of optical disks:
a. CD-ROM: CD-ROM is also known as Compact Disk-Read Only Memory; its platter has already contained programs and data that had been written by the manufacturer in advance. Therefore, users can only read data from it, having no right to modify the data or write new data into it.
b. CD-WORM: this kind of optical disk is also called Compact Disk-Write Once Read Many; users can write data into its platter for one time. Once information is written into such disk, it will be kept there permanently until the disk is broken. Users can read those data as many times as they want, but they still have no right to modify them or add new data.
c. CD-RW: it stands for Compact Disk-ReWritable; this kind of optical disk is similar to a magnetic disk because it can be read and written repeatedly. The data writing and reading principle varies with the different materials used to make disks.
But all in all, we want to the mass storage device data recovery is feasible, though the possibility of it large depends on the degree and type of disk damage and the things users do after data loss. If you are experiencing data loss from a mass storage device, MiniTool Power Data Recovery is worth a try.
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Final Words
This post introduces a detailed guide to performing mass storage device data recovery with MiniTool Power Data Recovery and two main mass storage devices. It is important to ensure the health status of your storage devices and safeguard data to prevent file loss.
If you have any problems when using MiniTool software, please feel free to let us know via [email protected].
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