What is the primary characteristic of a Hard Disk Drive?

The primary characteristic of a Hard Disk Drive (HDD) is that it provides large capacity storage by magnetically writing data on disks. HDDs utilize spinning platters coated with magnetic material, where data is stored in the form of magnetic polarity. This magnetic storage method allows for substantial amounts of data to be stored cost-effectively, making HDDs particularly well-suited for applications requiring large volumes of storage, such as media libraries and backups.

In contrast, solid-state drives (SSDs) use flash memory, which is not a characteristic of HDDs, and is a key distinction between the two types of storage. While SSDs are typically faster than HDDs in terms of data retrieval, this speed is not a characteristic of HDDs themselves. Additionally, HDDs can often be larger in physical size compared to SSDs, which are designed to be more compact as they have no moving parts. Therefore, option B highlights the essential feature of HDD technology.