13 Secondary Storage Devices

Let’s Think
The physical size of music players becomes smaller and hence increases their
portabiliy.

Activity 2
1. Right-click the file, and choose ‘Properties’ from the pop-up menu.
2. (a) ‘Size’ refers to the amount of bytes the file takes up while ‘size on disk’
reflects the amount of clusters allocated to the file and the number of bytes
the clusters take up.
(b) ‘Size on disk’ is always bigger than ‘Size’.
(c) Since files are stored on the disk in clusters, ‘size on disk’ just reflects the
amount of clusters allocated to a file buy not equal to the actual byte count.
If the actual file only needs a small portion of a cluster, ‘size on disk‘ for
that file will reflect the entire cluster as being used. Therefore, ‘size on disk’
is always bigger than the file size in the Properties dialogue box.
823,296
3. (a) The number of clusters allocated = = 201
1,024 × 4
(b) When a file is written to a disk, the smallest unit it will take up is 1 cluster.
In this case, the size on disk size is 4 KB (4,096 bytes) and 4,095 bytes will
be wasted.
(c) No, defragmentation can do nothing with the disk space wasted by files of
small size.
(d) ‧You will be required to format the hard disk.
‧The performance may be affected if a smaller cluster size is used. It is
because the hard disk has to do more work to read the data across several
clusters.

Concept Map
1. B
2. H
3. G
4. E
5. F
6. C
7. A

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8. D

Concept Checker
1. T
2. F
3. F
4. T
5. F

Multiple Choice questions

1. B
2. C
3. A
4. B
5. A
6. C
7. A
8. C
9. A
10. D

Short Questions
1. (a) ‧USB flash drive is less susceptible to environmental damage. (1)
‧USB flash drive can have higher capacity than CD-R. (1)
‧USB flash drive does not require CD-ROM drive for writing and reading
data. (1)
(b) ‧DVD-R requires much lower cost for permanent data backup. (1)
‧It is unable to modify the file stored in a DVD-R. (1)

2. (a) Hard disk (1). Because hard disk is durable, fast in retrieving stored data,
and high in storage capacity (1) that meets the requirement of being the
database for medical records. (1)
(b) Using magnetic tape (1) or another hard disk (1)

3. (a) Allocation unit is also called a cluster, which is the smallest unit of a hard
drive that stores data. (1) It is formed by grouping consecutive sectors
together as one unit. (1)
(b) Hard disk A (1). Because one allocation unit can only be used by exactly

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 one file. A file may use more than one allocation unit. (1) The possible
unused free space in the last allocation unit is larger for hard disk B. (1)

4. (a) Rational speed (1) and access time (1)

(b) Use optical storage devices, such as CD-R, CD-RW, HD DVD and Blu-ray
Disc, (1) or use USB flash drive. (1)
(c) Overwritten data in a hard disk cannot be recovered. (1)
Data cannot be recovered if the hard disk is out of order. (1)

5. (a) 1: 512 MB RAM (0.5)

2: 1 GB SD Card (0.5)
3: DVD-R (0.5)
4: Magnetic tape (0.5)
(b) Level 2: Memory Stick (1)
Level 3: MO disk (1)

Long Questions
1. (a) Use magnetic tape (1) to back up the system every night. (1) The
advantage is that the cost of storing and transferring is very low. (1) The
disadvantage is the restore process is very slow. (1)
(b) Use file compression software or activate compression option in the backup
software (any one × 1) to compress the file size into smaller than 20 GB so
that the file can be stored in the hard disk. (1)
(c) Use another hard disk (1) to duplicate the source hard disk. (1)
Advantage: Hard disk has a higher data transmission speed and hence
the backup time can be reduced. (1)
Disadvantage: high backup cost, must replace the whole hard disk
in the restore process (any one × 1)
(d) It is not suggested to use (1) because the backup process will slow down the
network communication significantly. (1)

2. (a) (i) ‧Memory card is lighter in weight. (1)

‧Memory card consumes less electrical power than a hard disk. (1)
(ii) ‧Small capacity (1)
‧Low data transmission speed (1)

(b) (i) Advantages: We can access the data anywhere in the world with a

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 computer connecting to the Internet. (1)
The cost of maintaining the hard disk can be saved. (1)
(ii) ‧Much slower in read/write process (1)
‧Less secure (1)
‧Shared capacity is much less than a single hard disk. (1)

(c) Yes. (1) Because the storage capacity of a Blu-ray Disc is much larger than
that of a DVD. (1) Also, the Blu-ray Disc players are backward compatible,
which means it can play Blu-ray Disc as well as DVD, VCD and CD. (1)

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