25th March 2006, 2:18 PM
I guess I picked the wrong term (I'm thinking of those giant massive plastic things with metal insides).
At any rate, hard drives are disk based. Further, modern hard drives are removable. It's called SATA. In fact, they can be easily removed while the machine is on (unless it is the one with the OS on it). I've got a special enclosure device that lets me simply stick in and remove hard disks on the fly through the USB connection. It's basically the same thing. The common understanding of the term "hard drive" is only talking about the material inside the drive. It doesn't have anything to do with how removable the drive is.
At any rate, hard drives are disk based. Further, modern hard drives are removable. It's called SATA. In fact, they can be easily removed while the machine is on (unless it is the one with the OS on it). I've got a special enclosure device that lets me simply stick in and remove hard disks on the fly through the USB connection. It's basically the same thing. The common understanding of the term "hard drive" is only talking about the material inside the drive. It doesn't have anything to do with how removable the drive is.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)