Discovering

Computers 2011
Living in a Digital World
Storage

Storage holds data, instructions, and

information for future use

A storage medium is the physical

material on which a computer keeps
data, instructions, and information
Pages 352 - 353 Discovering Computers 2011: Living in a Digital World 2
Chapter 7
Storage
• Storage medium :is the physical material on which a
computer keeps data, instructions, and information.
– Examples of storage media are harddisks, solid state drives,
memory cards, USB flash drives,cd disks
• Storage devices :A storage device is the computer
hardware that records and/or retrieves items to and from
storage media.
– examples cd drives

Discovering Computers 2011: Living in a Digital World 3

Chapter 7
Storage

Pages 352 – 353 Discovering Computers 2011: Living in a Digital World 4

Figure 7-1 Chapter 7
Storage

• Capacity is the number of bytes a storage medium

can hold

Page 354 Discovering Computers 2011: Living in a Digital World 5

Figure 7-2 Chapter 7
Storage

• A storage device is the computer hardware that

records and/or retrieves items to and from
storage media
Reading is the process
of transferring items
from a storage medium
into memory

Writing is the process of

transferring items from
memory to a storage
medium
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Chapter 7
Storage

• Access time measures:

– The amount of time it
takes a storage device to
locate an item on a
storage medium
– The time required to
deliver an item from
memory to the
processor

Page 355 Discovering Computers 2011: Living in a Digital World 7

Figure 7-4 Chapter 7
Hard Disks

• A hard disk contains one or more inflexible, circular platters

that use magnetic particles to store data, instructions, and
information

Page 355 Discovering Computers 2011: Living in a Digital World 8

Figure 7-5 Chapter 7
Hard Disks

• Hard disks can

store data using
longitudinal
recording or
perpendicular
recording

Page 356 Discovering Computers 2011: Living in a Digital World 9

Figure 7-6 Chapter 7
Longitudinal Recording

• Traditionally, hard disks stored data using

longitudinal recording, which aligned the
magnetic particles horizontally around the surface
of the disk.
• With perpendicular recording, by contrast, hard
disks align the magnetic particles vertically, or
perpendicular to the disk’s surface, making much
greater storage capacities possible.

Discovering Computers 2011: Living in a Digital World 10

Chapter 7
Hard Disks

• Characteristics of a hard disk

include:
Read/Write
Capacity Platters
Heads

Sectors and Revolutions

Cylinders
Tracks per Minute

Transfer
Access Time
Rate

Page 357 Discovering Computers 2011: Living in a Digital World 11

Figure 7-8 Chapter 7
Hard Disk Characteristics

• The capacity of a hard disk is determined from

whether it uses longitudinal or perpendicular
recording, the number of platters it contains, and
the composition of the magnetic coating on the
platters.
• A platter is made of aluminum, glass, or ceramic
and is coated with an alloy material that allows
items to be recorded magnetically on its surface.
The coating usually is three millionths of an inch
thick
Discovering Computers 2011: Living in a Digital World 12
Chapter 7
Formatting

• A track is a narrow recording band that forms a

full circle on the surface of the disk. The disk’s
storage locations consist of pie-shaped sections,
which break the tracks into small arcs called
sectors.
• On a hard disk, a sector typically stores up to 512
bytes of data. Sometimes, a sector has a flaw and
cannot store data. When you format a disk, the
operating system marks these bad sectors as
unusable.
Discovering Computers 2011: Living in a Digital World 13
Chapter 7
Hard Disks

• Formatting is the process of dividing the disk into tracks

and sectors so that the operating system can store and
locate data and information on the disk

Page 357 Discovering Computers 2011: Living in a Digital World 14

Figure 7-7 Chapter 7
Tracks and Sectors

Discovering Computers 2011: Living in a Digital World 15

Chapter 7
Discovering Computers 2011: Living in a Digital World 16
Chapter 7
Harddisk

• A disk controller consists of a special-purpose

chip and electronic circuits that control the
transfer of data, instructions, and information
from a disk

Discovering Computers 2011: Living in a Digital World 17

Chapter 7
Discovering Computers 2011: Living in a Digital World 18
Chapter 7
Hard Disks

• RAID (redundant array of independent disks) is a

group of two or more integrated hard disks
• A network attached storage (NAS) device is a
server connected to a network with the sole
purpose of providing storage

Page 360 Discovering Computers 2011: Living in a Digital World 19

Figure 7-13 Chapter 7
Hard Disks

An external hard disk is a separate

free-standing hard disk that connects
to your computer with a cable or
wirelessly

A removable hard disk is a hard disk

that you insert and remove from a
drive
Pages 360 – 361 Discovering Computers 2011: Living in a Digital World 20
Figures 7-14 – 7-15 Chapter 7
Cloud Storage

• Cloud storage is an Internet service that provides

storage to computer users

Page 368 Discovering Computers 2011: Living in a Digital World 21

Figure 7-23 Chapter 7
Cloud Storage

Page 368 Discovering Computers 2011: Living in a Digital World 22

Figure 7-24 Chapter 7
Cloud Storage

• Users subscribe to cloud storage for a variety of

reasons:
Access files from any computer

Store large files instantaneously

Allow others to access their files

View time-critical data and images immediately

Store offsite backups

Provide data center functions

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Chapter 7
Discovering
Computers 2011
Living in a Digital World

Chapter 7 Complete