Main Component of the Computer Hardware

The main components of a computer hardware can be divided into five categories namely:

• The system unit

• Storage devices

• Input devices

• Output devices

• Communication devices

The system unit houses some of the storage, input and the communication devices as well as the motherboard and other basic component of the system.

Storage devices

Storage devices are normally used for long time storage, these comprise of hard drives, floppy drives, CD/DVD Rom drives, Zip drives and so on.

Input Devices

Input devices are used to enter data and information into the computer system. The common and mostly used device is the keyboard; other devices include the mouse and digital cameras, and scanners.

Output Devices

Output devices convert data from machine codes into human readable forms. The two main devices are the Visual display unit (VDU) or the monitor, and the printer. Other devices include the microphones, graph plotters, robot arms and many more.

Communication devices

Communication device aid the transfer of data. An example of this device is the modem and the network card.