Hardware
Computer hardware is a collective term used to describe any of the physical components of an
analog or digital computer. The term hardware distinguishes the tangible aspects of a computing
device from software, which consists of written instructions that tell physical components what
to do. Without any hardware, your computer would not exist, and software could not be used.
Computer hardware can be categorized as having either internal or external components. Internal
components include items such as the motherboard, central processing unit (CPU), random
access memory (RAM), hard drive, optical drive, heat sink, power supply, transistors, chips,
graphics processing unit (GPU), network interface card (NIC) and Universal Serial Bus (USB)
ports. These components collectively process or store the instructions delivered by the program
or operating system (OS).
External components, also called peripheral components, are those items that are often
connected to the computer in order to control either its input or output. Common input
components include a mouse, keyboard, microphone, camera, touchpad, stylus, joystick,
scanner, USB flash drive or memory card. Monitors, printers, speakers, headphones and
earphones/earbuds are all examples of output computer hardware components. All these
hardware devices are designed to either provide instructions to the software or render results
from its execution.
Internal hardware components
Internal is a term used to describe a device that is installed in the
computer. For example, a video card is an internal device When
referring to a drive, an internal drive is any drive inside the
computer.
External hardware components
External hardware components are called peripherals. Peripherals include input devices, such as
a mouse or keyboard; output devices, such as a monitor or printer; and external storage devices,
such as a hard drive or USB card.
Other common external hardware components include microphones, monitors, speakers,
headphones, digital cameras, touchpads, stylus pens, joysticks, scanners and memory cards. All
these hardware devices are designed to either provide instructions to the software or render the
results from its execution.
Hardware virtualization
Hardware virtualization is the abstraction of physical computing resources from the software that
uses the resources. This is made possible by a virtual machine (VM) manager called
a hypervisor. Essentially, the hypervisor creates virtual versions of internal hardware so that
resources can be shared and used more efficiently. In cloud computing, hardware virtualization is
often associated with infrastructure as a service (IaaS).
IaaS is a delivery model for providing hardware resources over high-speed internet. In the IaaS
model, a cloud provider hosts hardware components that are traditionally present in an on-
premises data center, including servers, storage and networking hardware, but unlike a hardware
as a service (HaaS) provider, an IaaS provider will also host the software that makes
virtualization possible. Typically, an IaaS provider also supplies a range of services to
accompany infrastructure components. These can include detailed billing, monitoring, log
access, security, load balancing and clustering, as well as storage resiliency, such as backup,
replication and recovery.
Types of hardware
Types of hardware include the following:
Motherboard: The motherboard is the computer's central communications backbone
connectivity point through which all components and external peripherals connect. The
motherboard is the main printed circuit board in a computer. Also called the mainboard, the
motherboard holds important components, including the CPU, RAM, power supply, graphics
card and sound card.
CPU: The CPU is responsible for processing most of the computer's data, turning input
into output.
RAM: The hardware in a computer where the OS, application programs and data that are
being used are kept so the device's processor can quickly reach them. As the main memory of
a computer, RAM is much faster to read from and write to than other types of storage,
including a hard disk drive (HDD), solid-state drive (SSD) and optical drive. RAM is
volatile, meaning that data remains in RAM if the computer is on, but it's lost when the
computer is turned off. The OS and other files are reloaded into RAM, usually from an SSD
or HDD, when the computer is rebooted.
Display screen: A display screen may be an external monitor, or it may be built into the
computer. A touchscreen display is sensitive to pressure. As such, a user interacts with the
device by touching pictures or words on the screen.
HDD: A nonvolatile memory (NVM) hardware device, an HDD stores OS files,
application problems, media and other documents. The HDD can store data permanently
even in the event of a power failure.
SSD: A type of nonvolatile storage device that stores persistent data on solid-state flash
memory. An SSD consists of a flash controller and NAND flash memory Unlike an HDD, an
SSD doesn't have any moving parts. SSDs use flash-based memory, which is significantly
faster than traditional mechanical hard disks. Since they're nonmechanical, SSDs use less
power, which means longer battery life when they're built into laptop computers.
Graphics card: Responsible for rendering graphics in a computer and projecting
information onto a screen, a graphics card aims to remove the processing strain from the
processor or RAM.
Removable drives: Any type of storage device that can be removed from a computer
while the system is running, including USB cards and optical discs, such as compact discs
(CDs), Blu-ray discs and digital versatile discs (DVDs).
Power supply: The power supply converts the power from the outlet into usable power
for the other components inside the computer. Typically, more power is needed to run more
complex systems. For example, a desktop computer with a high-end motherboard, a custom
liquid cooling loop and dual GPUs will need a higher wattage computer power supply than a
system that is not so complex.
Hardware upgrades
A hardware upgrade is any new hardware better than that which it
replaced or additional hardware that improves performance. An
example of a common hardware upgrade is a RAM upgrade, where the
user increases the computer's total memory. Another example is a
video card upgrade, which is the act of removing an old video card and
replacing it with a newer, more powerful model.
