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computer
FUNDAMENTALS III

CFGS DEVELOPMENT OF MULTI-PLATFORM APPLICATIONS

Module: Computer systems
UD2: Fundamentals of Information Systems

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1.Secondary storage ............................................. ................................................................ .....................................two

1.1.Physical specifications............................................ ................................................................ ............................3

Capacity .................................................. ................................................................ ................................................................ .....4

External transfer speed (Flow rate)............................................ ................................................................ ...................4

1.2.Interfaces and Connectors............................................ ................................................................ ......................4

1.2.1. IDE interface.................................................. ................................................................ .................................5

IDE Cables.................................................. ................................................................ ................................................................ ...6

1.2.2. SATA interface.................................................. ................................................................ .............................7

SATA connectors.................................................. ................................................................ ............................................7

1.2.3. M.2 connector..................................... ................................................................ ................................8

1.2.4. PCIe interfaces.................................................. ................................................................ .............................9

1.3. Magnetic hard disks............................................ ................................................................ ................................9

Physical characteristics................................................ ................................................................ ................................10

Addressing mode................................................ ................................................................ ........................................eleven

1.3.1. Magnetic HD features................................................... ................................................................ .................eleven

Rotation speed .................................................. ................................................................ ...........................................eleven

Size of buffer or cache............................................ ................................................................ ...................................eleven

1.4. SSD disks................................................ ................................................................ .............................................eleven

1.4.1. AHCI and NVMe Protocol............................................ ................................................................ .............13

AHCI Protocol ................................................ ................................................................ ................................................13

NVMe Protocol ................................................ ................................................................ ............................................13

1.Secondary storage
The CPU collects the information from RAM and, once processed, sends the result back to RAM. As the content of RAM
memory disappears when the computer is turned off, it is essential to have storage systems that allow information to be saved
and thus prevent its loss.

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It is important to highlight the difference between two concepts: interface and protocol. The interface is the
physical connection standard, the connector itself, which connects a device to the motherboard.
The protocol, on the other hand, is the technology that is responsible for establishing the data transmission bridge
between the system and the device (defines a set of commands that determines the language used between them.
Eg: Read, Write, Flush, .. .). There are cases where the two things are mixed.

.1.Physical specifications
Any PC can boot and run without a hard drive, because it is secondary storage, but nowadays, this configuration
makes computers less useful. For 50 years hard drives (from now on HDD) have been based on magnetic technology,
although in recent years new solid state drives (SDD) based on flash memory have appeared, with the same external
appearance as the hard disk, but faster, quieter and more efficient.

The first PC hard disks had a 5.25'' physical format. Today PC hard drives are almost exclusively 3.5'' (8.89 cm). In
the world of laptop the common size is 2.5''(6.35 cm), followed closely by the 1.8'' (4.572 cm).

If we talk about SSD disks they are produced in 2.5'' or 1.8'' formats.

There are many adapters to use small-format disks in larger bays, as well as housings for connection to external ports.

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M.2.
mSATA to SATA SSD to USB 3.0

Capacity

Today is usually measured in GB or TB. Keep in mind that in general in hard drives advertisements, 1GB is 109
bytes and not 230 bytes.

Internal read/write speed

It is one of the more technical aspects behind an SSD, but it's also the metric by which their performance is
measured. Essentially, this is the rate at which it reads and writes data (measured in MB/s). While all SSDs are
faster than HDDs, they aren't all operating at the same read/write speeds.

It is normally less than the speed of the interface (external speed).

External transfer speed (Flow rate)

It is the most knowing value, since it is much higher than the internal speed. This is the rate at which the output
interface transmits data between the hard disk or SSD and the rest of the PC. In a SATA disk can be up to 600MB/s.

.2.Interfaces and Connectors

Interface: it is the means of communication with our PC, mobile, tablet... The most common is SATA, which
replaced the IDE connection and has three versions. PCIe, on the other hand, represents an evolution of SATA and
is used in SSD models.

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.2.1. IDE interface

The full name of IDE is "Integrated Drive Electronics", and its original meaning refers to the hard disk drive that
integrates the "hard disk controller" and the "disk body". Many hard disks used to have IDE interfaces, but now
almost all hard drive interfaces use the SATA standard.

IDE represents a type of hard disk interfaces, but in today's applications, people are also used to call it the first
ATA-1 IDE type hard disk. Over time, more types of interfaces such as ATA, Ultra ATA, DMA, Ultra DMA and other
interfaces have been developed, all of them IDE hard disk interfaces.

Classical ATA interface is parallel type interface, that is, it transmits data in groups per pulse at a relatively low
speed. Today, to differentiate it from the new SATA interface, often it is called PATA (Parallel ATA).

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Each of the devices in each channel has a role:

• Master: The main device, which takes precedence over the other in the operating system boot.
Besides, it controls bus.
• Slave: The second one

The IDE interface transfers data at the rate of up to 133MB/s

IDE Cables
There are different IDE connection cables, either for laptop or desktop. In addition to the data cable, IDE/PATA
devices need a power supply connector (usually called MOLEX)

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ID / LEG
Dating cables IDE/PATA power supply
wire

.2.2. SATA interface

Transmitting simultaneously relatively large groups of bits, using a relatively large number of wires, it is very
useful when we are working with low speeds (that is, few MHz). But at high speeds interferences in the signal
begin to show, just because so many connectors in parallel. The solution is usually to minimize the number of
cables, isolate and greatly increase the clock speed to compensate. This is the reason why technology moves
from a PATA (Parallel ATA) to SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment:).
Unfortunately, there is no clear agreement to call the different variants of the SATA. In the table below you can
see some variants with their characteristics:

usual names flow rate Frequency standard

SATA, SATA/150, SATA 1.5Gb 150MB/s 1500MHz SATA 1.0

SATA2, SATA II, SATA/300, SATA 3Gb 300MB/s 3000MHz SATA 2.0

SATA3, SATA 6Gb, SATA 6G 600MB/s 6000MHz SATA 3.0

About these generations, unlike other standards, their official names are not 1.0, 2.0 or 3.0 as usual.
Instead, a "last name" is used relative to its speed, and these are SATA 1.5 Gb/s, 3 Gb/s, and 6 Gb/s.

SATA connectors
SATA SSDs need a SATA cable for data transfer and a power cable to give power.

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Figure 4. SATA power supply wire Figure 5. SATA data cable

Most of the computers we use are also SATA interfaces. The SATA interface version is backward
compatible. SATA does not need to set the master and slave disk jumpers, the BIOS will number it in the
order of 1, 2, 3...

.23. M.2 connector

The physical M.2 connector supports transferring data over the SATA bus. When purchasing M.2 SSDs, it's
important to double-check if the SSD is a SATA or NVMe drive.

M.2 disks are generally divided into two types. When buying M.2 SSDs, you need to pay attention to internal
agreements. One is to use the traditional SATA AHCI protocol, which has no difference in performance with
ordinary SATA solid hard drives; another is to use the brand-new NVMe protocol (Non Volatile Memory
Express), which can provide SSD performance up to 3000MB/s or more.

While SATA is both a connection interface and a hardware connector for connecting an SSD itself, M.2 is
not an interface, but a hardware connection connector and a form factor. SATA and PCI-E SSDs can be
connected via the M.2 slot. And so that we can connect an SSD with the desired interface to the computer,
the motherboard of the PC or laptop must have an appropriate M.2 slot. The M.2 slot on some motherboards
of PCs and laptops can accept either the SATA bus or the PCI-E bus, ie such devices have

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either M.2 SATA or M.2 PCI-E slot.

Laptops usually, if they have an M.2 slot, it is either an M.2 SATA slot or an M.2 PCI-E slot. But on separate
PC motherboards, M.2 slots can work in both modes – both in M.2 SATA mode and in M.2 PCI-E mode.
And, accordingly, you can connect either M.2 SATA drives or M.2 PCI-E drives to such motherboards.

A different physical cut-out, referred to as a key, is used in SATA and the faster NVMe M.2 connectors to
minimize consumer confusion.

.2.4. PCIe interfaces

PCI-E (peripheral component interconnect express) is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard.
It was proposed by Intel in 2001 to replace the old PCI, PCI-X, and AGP bus standards. It belongs to high-
speed serial point-to-point high-bandwidth dual-channel transmission. The connected devices allocate
exclusive channel bandwidth and do not share bus bandwidth.

The PCI-E bus protocol can be directly connected to the CPU with almost no delay, making it an excellent
companion to the NVMe standard.

A NVMe-based M.2 SSD module installed on a PCIe x2 lane will run at 15.75 Gb/s, while a module installed
on a PCIe x4 lane will run at 31.5 Gb/s. An M.2 SSD module is designed only for either a SATA or PCIe
interface, not both at the same time, although some systems may have M.2 sockets that will support either
one or both interfaces.

What is M.2? Keys and Sockets Explained

.3.Magnetic hard disks

The magnetic information storage consists in taking advantage of the capacity of certain materials to
permanently store a given magnetic state that is imposed from outside.
The main advantages are:
• The storage is permanent.

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•
It can be altered at any time.
•
Its price is very low with respect to their capacity. The disadvantages are:
• They are quite delicate. The recorded data may be affected by high and low temperatures,
humidity...
• They can be affected by shock •
They can be affected by magnetic fields

Physical characteristics
The hard disk is a magnetic and mechanical device with moving parts and therefore more sensitive than other
systems such as memory. Data is stored in magnetic form on the surface of a series of disks, called platters.
These platters are rigid and rotate about a common axis at high speed.

Figure 7. Magnetic hard disk opened

Figure 6. Magnetic hard disk diagram

To read and write data are available heads. These heads are placed on the platters surface without touching it,
floating through the air pressure generated by such high speeds. This lack of contact is what enables high speed
read and write and a great capacity of disk. Obviously, the dish surface must be absolutely free of dirt.

The heads are attached to arms which, in turn, are attached to an own axis located next to the platters, so that
the heads can slide radially on the surface of the platters.

The data is distributed over the platters in thousands of concentric circles called tracks. Each of these tracks is
divided into hundreds of adjacent parts of the same capacity called sectors. This capacity is usually 512 Bytes
(although nowadays, in modern and high capacity disks, this value is 4096 Bytes) and corresponds to the smallest
unit of information that can be read and recorded on the disk.

So that the outer tracks were not underused (the outer tracks are larger than the inside ones and if we divide all
the tracks by the same number of sectors, the interior will be more dense and exterior very little used) it is used a
different scheme , where tracks are grouped into various concentric zones and each one

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is divided into a number of sectors greater the greater their circumference.

Finally there are the cylinders. Since the arms of the heads move in unison, on disks with various platters,
all heads always be located on the same track number in each. The cylinder is the set of tracks that can be
positioned heads in a moment.

addressing mode

Storage protocols have used the cylinder-head-sector to locate a data system for a long time. All of them,
cylinders, sectors and the faces of the platters (heads) are identified by a number. Knowing these 3 numbers
is essential to locate the information. Currently there are disks that can be configured in LBA mode (Logical
Block Address) where all disk sectors without consecutively numbered from 0 to n-1.

.3.1. Magnetic HD features

rotation speed

It is the angular velocity of the rotating platters, measured in revolutions per minute (rpm) and is a key
parameter disk performance. Hard drives 3.5'' usually have 7200rpm. Only low-end or very high capacity
''
has speeds of 5400rpm. In smaller hard drives, the speed is reduced. Thus, in 2.5 it is 5400rpm
4200rpm.and as 1.8''

Size of buffer or cache

The buffer is a memory that performs the function of data storage between a "fast" device (disk
controller) and a slow (the mechanical part of a hard disk).
This buffer also serves as a disk cache. Thus, when reading data from the processor to the disk
requested, may these are already located in the buffer. In this case the data will be read much faster.
The larger the buffer, the more likely that a data was saved on it. Today the trend is to have 16MB,
although there are still 8MB disk and it can be found easily with some 32MB and 64MB.

.4. SSD disks

Solid State Disks (SSD's) store data with the use of flash-memory chips (called NAND flash memory).
There are no moving parts to break and data is stored electronically, not magnetically (have no moving parts).
The advantages of SSD's are its size, weight, and less power usage than hard disks.

SSDs came in 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch format with SATA interface. These drives have evolved and are now
based on the M.2 format and the PCIe interface in its different versions.

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SATA SSD Interface

We can find two types of SSDs that make use of the PCIe interface. We have on the one hand the M.2 SSD with
PCIe interface and on the other hand the type of PCIe SSD card. Although both share the same type of
communication bus with the processor, their format and installation is different. M.2 PCIe SSDs are mounted on the
motherboard using a dedicated connector. On the other hand, card-type PCIe SSDs are installed in the expansion
PCIe ports and anchored to the chassis.

PCIe SSD card M.2 SSD with PCIe interface

SSDs have the following advantages over hard drives: •

Faster, having no mechanical components. • Due to this
circumstance, SSDs are a good choice to house the operating system, since, among
other features, they optimize the ignition speed.
• They are more durable on a physical level, also, because of their lack of mechanical parts. its
reliability is greater in the long term.
• Unlike hard drives, they do not need to be defragmented from time to time for the information to
be ordered.

And several drawbacks:

• They require a greater economic investment per GB.

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• Its storage capacity is lower, but this limitation is being progressively solved. •
Their cells become corrupted on each write, decreasing their lifespan. However, it is estimated that
Its duration is sufficient for normal use.
• They lose information if you are a long time without connecting them. Depending on the type of
SSD the period ranges from several months to years.
• Finally, note that if we delete something it is permanently deleted. This is an advantage or not depending
on the case, because on the negative side it makes it difficult to recover files lost by accident.

.4.1. AHCI and NVMe Protocol

There are two mainstream transmission protocols for SSD (Solid State Drive): One is the AHCI protocol, and
the other is the NVMe protocol.

AHCI Protocol
Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI), sets the operation of Serial ATA (SATA) host controllers in a
non-implementation-specific manner in its motherboard chipsets. That is, AHCI allows storage drivers to
connect advanced SATA functions. When we use SATA SSD, we must enable AHCI mode in the motherboard
settings. This is because when the AHCI mode is turned on, the number of useless seeks of the SSD can be
greatly shortened and the data search time can be reduced. So that the SSD under multitasking can exert all
the performance and effects. According to related performance tests, after the AHCI mode is turned on, the
SSD read and write performance is increased by about 30%. However, with the gradual enhancement of SSD
performance, these standards have also become a major bottleneck restricting solid state drives. Because
the AHCI standard designed for hard disk drives is not suitable for low-latency solid state drives.

NVMe Protocol
Another transmission protocol is the NVMe protocol that represents the future performance trend. The so-
called NVMe protocol is to make full use of the low latency and parallelism of PCI-E channels, greatly improve
the read and write performance of SSDs under controllable storage costs. It reduces the high latency caused
by the AHCI, and completely liberates ultimate performance of SATA SSD.

Due to the flash memory particles and the main control, the SSD price with M.2 NVMe protocol is very high,
which is about twice the price of SATA SSD. So buy the corresponding level of solid state hard drive based
on the configuration and requirements of the computer. Otherwise it will cause performance waste.

https://www.apogeeweb.net/electron/Overview-of-IDE-SATA-SCSI-Fibre-Channel-SAS.html

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model

Capacity

Interface

Sequential
read speed
Sequential
write speed

Protocol NVMe AHCI AHCI AHCI NVMe

form factor NVMe M.2 2.5" 2.5" 2.5" NVMe M.2

HDD vs. SATA SSD vs. NVMe SSD performance and other differences

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