Hardware Components

Hard Drive

A hard drive is a device that is capable of storing data. The capacity size of the hard drive will determine how much data it can hold. Another important factor to consider when choosing a hard drive is the speed. The speed of the hard drive is determined by the rotation speed of the rotation speed of the disk in side the hard drive. The rotation speed is measured in RPM (rotations per minute), hard drive spins between 5200 and 10,000 rotations per minute. Another factor that will determine the speed of the hard drive is the amount of memory cache inside of the hard drive. A hard drive is just like an internal hard drive. The only difference is that a hard drive is not inside of the computer. It is portable and is usually connected to the computer/ laptop via the USB port. Most modern hard drives supports plug and play technology; meaning that the computer system does not have to install the hard drive if the user wants to use it. The in side of a hard drive is made up of the following components. The read/ write head, the landing tray, the spindle, disk platters, debris filter, head disk assembly and the actuators. The read/ write head hovers over the disk platters. Air pressure prevents the read/ writes head from touching and damaging the disk platters. A magnet moves the head so that data can be wrote to the hard drive. A hard drive affects the performance of the computing system when digital graphics are being manipulated. The hard drive can store important software for graphic designers such as Adobe Photoshop. It allows the user to download plugins, etc. A hard drive allows the user to save images of Adobe Photoshop files to the computer. If the hard drive is an external hard drive then it can be used as a portable device to transfer files and back them up in the event that they system is hacked, attacked by a virus or files are accidently deleted.



Graphics Card

The graphics card can affect the performance of a computer system when digital graphics are being manipulated because if graphic designer is editing a very complexed and high resolution image that has a large file size and he or she is using a slow graphics card then this will slow the system down. This is why it is important for a graphic designer to have a fast graphics card as it will not slow the system down. A fast graphic card that is suitable for most graphic designers has up to one gigabyte or more memory. A graphics card is also known as a video card. It is an expansion card that has a job to convert the signal that is generated by the operating system into a signal that a monitor or display can understand and transfer into an image on the screen. The graphics card will connect a display such as a monitor to the computer allowing them to interact. The graphics card is connected to the motherboard. There are many different graphics cards on the market and the price varies.

Processor

The processor, also known as a CPU is a very important hardware component in relation to how well a computer system performs in relations to digital graphics being manipulated. Graphic software such as Adobe Photoshop has to process a lot of complexed instructions when the user is for example adding a filter to the image. This means that the computer needs a processor with a high processing speed so the computer will not crash when the software has to process complexed instructions. A dual core processor is usually faster that a single core processor because it has twice as much cores and a quad core processor is usually faster that a dual core processor and a single core processor because it has more cores.

RAM

RAM stands for random access memory. It is also known as memory. The RAM keeps data from the programs that are open and running. This is useful because it means that the memory is closer to the processor that the processor is to the hard drive. This will mean the processor can work more efficiently because it does not have to get data from the hard drive that is further away. The more memory that a RAM has will mean that it will perform better. The RAM is attached to the motherboard. It is measured in gigabytes and most modern day computers have at least two gigabytes of RAM. This is important because software such as Adobe Photoshop takes up a lot of RAM and if a graphics designer is doing manipulating an image using this software they will not want the software slowing down and crashing.