Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Can the weight of a hard drive increase?

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A few days ago, I came upon a very interesting post in a Microsoft forum. Take a look at it:

Apologies if this is the incorrect area for this question.
I've noticed that as I copy data/install programs on my Laptop, the weight of the Laptop increases. I have a bad back and am medically limited on the amount of weight I can carry so I need to be very carefull not to inflict injury upon myself.
I have also noticed my XBox feels heavier as well (the more games I save or purchase from arcade). I generally don't travel with my XBox so that is not an issue for me, but note the I am having the same results.
My ask, what is the weight/file ratio? So for example, how many GB's = 6oz? I dread the day I need a dolly to commute to work with my Laptop.
Thanks in advance!
- K

I copied all of the grammar and English errors faithfully (Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V).

Whether the question was serious or simply a joke is irrelevant. There were a variety of answers to it. I am going to show you two that I liked. You decide which one is correct:

First answer:

It’s worth noting that this answer was “Marked as Answer” by the person who asked the question (K_McLovin).

Hi K_McLovin,

Thank you for posting on Microsoft Answers Forum.

If we understand your question correctly, there is no possible way that copying files or installing programs is increasing the weight of your laptop. Also, the same with your Xbox, downloading games from the Arcade will not increase the weight of your Game Console.

Just to explain a little bit more as to why the hard drive will not “gain weight”; if you were to look inside a hard drive you would see what would resemble a record player. There are small platters that resemble the record then you have a read/write head attached to an arm. The platters are coated with tiny magnetic particles when the hard drive gets "written on" the read/write head simply alters the polarity of the millions of different little sections on different parts of the hard drive. So when you write on a hard drive you don't really "Write" on it, you rearrange things on it, and because of that the weight doesn’t change.

If we are misunderstanding your question please clarify so that we may further assist you.



Robyn
Microsoft Answers Support Engineer
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Second answer:

This can be considered an evil answer.

This is a rare error when the overwriting mechanism of the memory banks lead to an overflow of data because it cannot add on and thus super-stack, increasing the weight significantly. While normal weight/file ratio is approximately 0.02 oz/GB, in rare cases such as these, it can go as high as somewhere around 6 oz/GB.

One solution is going to the system32 folder (C:\WINDOWS\system32) and deleting certain unnecessary files, but too much tampering may cause permanent changes to your computer.

There were many other interesting answers and I invite you to read them. You can go to this thread using

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistahardware/thread/720108ee-0a9c-4090-b62d-bbd5cb1a7605

Thank you

1 comment:

  1. that copying files or installing programs is increasing the weight of your laptop. Also, the same with your Xbox, downloading games from the Arcade will not increase the weight of your Game Console Octreotide Acetate

    ReplyDelete