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Anusha Ahuja
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Storage Devices
and Media
What is Data Storage?
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ROM & RAM
The main memory of a computer is
made up of a set of memory chips
ROM RAM
The instructions to
Programs and data
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The two main types
Mainstore ( memory
storage in the
Backing storage
( storage on disks
tape CD etc)
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Backing Storage vs Main Memory
Main Memory Backing Storage
Main memory (sometimes known as
internal memory or primary storage) is Backing storage
another name for RAM (and ROM). (sometimes known as
secondary storage) is the
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Accessing Stored Data
Serial / Sequential Access
A serial (or sequential) access storage
device is one that stores files one-by-one
in a sequence.
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Serial / Sequential Access conti….
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Direct / Random Access
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Data Storage Capacity
Some storage media can only store a very limited amount of data, whilst others
can store vast amounts...
Units
1,000,000,000,000B = 1TB
And modern hard drives can store a terabyte of data or more - that's
more words than you could type even if you started now, and typed
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Data Access Speeds
Some storage devices can access data very quickly, whilst others are
extremely slow...
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Magnetic Storage Devices / Media conti….
Fixed Hard Drive
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Magnetic Storage Devices / Media conti….
Portable Hard Drive
A portable hard-drive is one that is placed
into a small case along with some
electronics that allow the hard-drive to be
Many portable music players (such as the iPod classic) contain tiny
hard-drives. These miniature devices are just not much bigger than
a stamp, but can still store over 100MB of data!
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Magnetic Storage Devices / Media conti….
Magnetic Tape
Magnetic tape is a large capacity, serial
access medium. Because it is a serial
access medium, accessing individual files
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Magnetic Storage Devices / Media conti….
Removeable Media Magnetic Discs
Floppy Disc
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Optical Storage Devices / Media
Why 'Optical'?
Optical storage devices save data as
patterns of dots that can be read using
light. A laser beam is the usual light
CD-ROM
Compact Disc - Read-Only Memory (CD-
ROM) discs can hold around 800MB of
data. The data cannot be altered (non-
volatile), so cannot be accidently deleted.
CD-ROMs are random-access devices.
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Optical Storage Devices / Media conti….
High Capacity Optical Discs
Blu-Ray
Blu-Ray disks are a recent replacement for
DVDs. A Blu-Ray disc can hold 25 - 50GB
The 'Blu' part of Blu-Ray refers to the fact that the laser used to read the disc uses
blue light instead of red light. Blue light has a shorter wave-length than red light
(used with CDs and DVDs).
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Using a blue laser allows more data to be placed closer together on a Blu-Ray
disc, than on a DVD or CD, so Blu-Ray has a much higher storage capacity than
these older discs.
Optical Storage Devices / Media conti….
Recordable Optical Discs
Recordable optical discs can have data
written onto them (‘burnt’) by a computer When CD-Rs and DVD-Rs are
user using a special disc drive (a disc burnt, the laser makes
‘burner’).
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Solid-State Storage Devices conti….
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Backing Up Data
What is a Backup?
Note: If you move the
A backup simply means making one or more photos from the hard-
copies of your data. drive to a CD-R, you
do not have a back-
For example, if you have a folder of photos stored up – you still only
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Why Backup Your Data?
Formatting a disk is the process of laying out on the surface of the disk,
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Each of the areas or parts of the disk have special names:
TOR
C
SE
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Data is stored in blocks
The unit of transfer between the disk drive and the CPU is
in blocks
Answer.
The way the CPU is expecting to read or write data with the
disk is different, because the disks are FORMATTED
differently.
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Presentation by Mrs. Anusha Ahuja
For Quiz
http://www.teach-ict.com/gcse/hardware/storage/miniweb/quiz.htm
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Revision