DISCOVERING COMPUTERS 2018

Digital Technology, Data, and Devices

Module 8
Digital Storage:
Preserving Content
Locally and on the
Cloud

• Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a
publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Objectives Overview (1 of 2)

• Differentiate between storage and memory

• Describe the characteristics of internal hard disks
• Describe the benefits of solid-state drives
• Identify uses of external hard drives and RAID
• Differentiate among various types of memory cards
and USB flash drives

• Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated,

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Objectives Overview (2 of 2)

• Discuss the benefits and uses of cloud storage

• Describe characteristics of and differentiate among
types of optical discs
• Explain types of enterprise storage
• Identify uses of magnetic stripe cards, smart cards,
RFID tags, and NFC tags

• Copyright © 2018 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated,

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Storage (1 of 10)

• A storage medium is the physical material on which

a computer keeps data, information, programs, and
applications
• Cloud storage keeps information on servers on the
Internet, and the actual media on which the files
are stored are transparent to the user

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Storage (2 of 10)

Figure 8-1 A variety of storage options.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Storage (3 of 10)

• A storage device is the hardware that records

and/or retrieves items to and from storage media

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Storage (4 of 10)
Capacity is the number of bytes a storage medium can hold
Table 8-1 Terms Used to Define Storage

Storage Term Approximate Number of Bytes Exact Number of Bytes

Kilobyte (KB) 1 thousand 210 or 1,024

Megabyte (MB) 1 million 210 or 1,048,576

Gigabyte (GB) 1 billion 230 or 1,073,741,824

Terabyte (TB) 1 trillion 240 or 1,099,511,627,776

Petabyte (PB) 1 quadrillion 250 or 1,125,899,906,842,624

Exabyte (EB) 1 quintillion 260 or 1,152,921,504,606,846,976

Zettabyte (ZB) 1 sextillion 270 or 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424

Yottabyte (YB) 1 septillion 280 or 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Storage (5 of 10)
An Illustration of Volatility
State of Computer

Figure 8-2 A screen display is considered volatile because its contents

disappear when power is removed. Likewise, most RAM is volatile. That
is, its contents are erased when power is removed from a computer or
mobile device. Storage, by contrast, is nonvolatile. Its contents remain
when power is off.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Storage (6 of 10)
Screen Display Volatile

Figure 8-2 A screen display is considered volatile because its contents

disappear when power is removed. Likewise, most RAM is volatile. That
is, its contents are erased when power is removed from a computer or
mobile device. Storage, by contrast, is nonvolatile. Its contents remain
when power is off.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Storage (7 of 10)

Contents of Most RAM Volatile

Figure 8-2 A screen display is considered volatile because its contents

disappear when power is removed. Likewise, most RAM is volatile. That
is, its contents are erased when power is removed from a computer or
mobile device. Storage, by contrast, is nonvolatile. Its contents remain
when power is off.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Storage (8 of 10)
Contents of Storage Nonvolatile

Figure 8-2 A screen display is considered volatile because its contents

disappear when power is removed. Likewise, most RAM is volatile. That
is, its contents are erased when power is removed from a computer or
mobile device. Storage, by contrast, is nonvolatile. Its contents remain
when power is off.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Storage (9 of 10)

• 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

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Storage (10 of 10)

Figure 8-3 A comparison of different types of storage media and memory in

terms of relative speed and uses. Memory is faster than storage but is expensive
and not practical for all storage requirements. Storage is less expensive but is
slower than memory.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Hard Drives (1 of 11)
A hard disk, also called a hard disk drive (HDD)
contains one or more inflexible, circular platters that
use magnetic particles to store data, instructions, and
information

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Hard Drives (2 of 11)

Figure 8-4 The hard disk in a personal computer is enclosed inside an

airtight, sealed case. In these photos of the desktop and laptop hard disks,
the top plate is removed for illustration purposes. The laptop hard disk is
much smaller than the desktop hard disk.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Hard Drives (3 of 11)
• The storage capacity of hard disks varies and is
determined by:
– The number of platters the hard disk contains
– The composition of the magnetic coating on the platters
– Whether the disk uses longitudinal or perpendicular
recording
– Density

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Hard Drives (4 of 11)
Formatting is the process of dividing the disk into
tracks and sectors

Figure 8-5 Tracks form circles on the surface of a hard disk. The
disk’s storage locations are divided into wedge-shaped sections,
which break the tracks into small arcs called sectors. Several
sectors form a cluster.
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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Hard Drives (5 of 11)

• Characteristics of a hard disk include:

– Tracks
– Sectors
– Platters
– Form factor
– Read/write head
– Revolutions per minute

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Hard Drives (6 of 11)

Figure 8-6 This figure shows how a hard disk works.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Hard Drives (7 of 11)
• A head crash occurs when a read/write head
touches the surface of a platter
• Always keep a backup of your hard disk

Figure 8-7 The clearance between a hard disk read/write head and the platter is
about two-millionths of an inch. Any contaminant could render the disk unusable.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Hard Drives (8 of 11)

• An SSD (solid state drive) is a flash memory

storage device that contains its own processor to
manage its storage
• An SSD (solid state drive) has several advantages
over traditional (magnetic) hard disks:
– Faster access times
– Faster transfer rates
– Quieter operation
– More durable
– Lighter weight

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Hard Drives (9 of 11)

– Less power consumption

– Less heat generation
– Longer life
– Defragmentation not required

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Hard Drives (10 of 11)
An external hard drive is a separate freestanding
storage device that connects with a cable to a USB
port or other port on a computer or mobile device

Figure 8-9 Examples of external hard drives.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Hard Drives (11 of 11)
RAID (redundant array of independent disks) is a
group of two or more integrated hard drives

Figure 8-10 An example of RAID for the home or small business user.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Portable Flash Memory Storage (1 of 5)

• A memory card is a removable flash memory

storage device that you insert and remove from a
slot in a computer, mobile device, or card
reader/writer
– SDHC
– SDXC
– miniSD
– microSDHC

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Portable Flash Memory Storage (2 of 5)

– microSDXC
– CF
– xD Picture Card
– Memory Stick PRO Duo
– M2

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Portable Flash Memory Storage (3 of 5)

Figure 8-11 Many types of computers and devices have slots for memory
cards.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Portable Flash Memory Storage (4 of 5)

Figure 8-12 This figure shows how an SD card works.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Portable Flash Memory Storage (5 of 5)

USB flash drives plug into a USB port on a

computer or mobile device

Figure 8-13 A close-up of the flash memory and circuitry inside a USB
flash drive.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Cloud Storage
• Cloud storage is an Internet service that
provides storage to computer or mobile
device users

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Optical Discs (1 of 5)
An optical disc consists of a flat, round, portable
disc made of metal, plastic, and lacquer that is
written and read by a laser

Figure 8-14 An optical disc in a disc drive.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Optical Discs (2 of 5)

How a Laser Reads Data on an Optical Disc

Figure 8-15 This figure shows how a laser reads data on an optical disc.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Optical Discs (3 of 5)
• Optical discs commonly store items in a single
track that spirals from the center of the disc to the
edge of the disc
• Track is divided into evenly sized sectors

Figure 8-16 An optical disc typically stores data, instructions, and information
in a single track that spirals from the center of the disc to the edge of the disc.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Optical Discs (4 of 5)

• A CD-ROM can be read from but not written to

– Single-session disc
• A CD-R is an optical disc on which users can write
once, but not erase
• A CD-RW is an erasable multisession disc

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Optical Discs (5 of 5)

• A DVD-ROM is a high-capacity optical disc on

which users can read but not write on or erase
• A DVD-R or DVD+R are competing DVD-
recordable WORM formats, on which users can
write once but not erase
• DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD+RAM are
competing DVD-rewritable formats that users can
write on multiple times

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Enterprise Storage (1 of 7)

• Enterprise hardware allows large organizations to

manage and store data and information using
devices intended for heavy use, maximum
efficiency, and maximum availability
– RAID duplicates data, instructions, and information to
improve data reliability

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Enterprise Storage (2 of 7)

Figure 8-18 In RAID level 1, called mirroring, a backup disk exists for each
drive. Other RAID levels use striping; that is, portions of each drive are placed
on multiple drives.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Enterprise Storage (3 of 7)

• Network attached storage (NAS) is a server that

is placed on a network with the sole purpose of
providing storage to users, computers, and devices
attached to the network

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Enterprise Storage (4 of 7)

Figure 8-19 An example of how network attached storage connects

on a network.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Enterprise Storage (5 of 7)
A storage area network (SAN) is a high-speed
network with the sole purpose of providing
storage to other attached servers

Figure 8-20 A storage area network provides centralized storage for

servers and networks.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Enterprise Storage (6 of 7)

• Tape is a magnetically coated ribbon of plastic

capable of storing large amounts of data and
information
• A tape drive reads and writes data and information
on a magnetic tape

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Enterprise Storage (7 of 7)

Figure 8-21 A tape robot retrieves tape cartridges.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Other Types of Storage (1 of 7)

• A magnetic stripe card has a magnetic stripe that

contains information
• A smart card stores data on an integrated circuit
embedded in the card

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Other Types of Storage (2 of 7)

Figure 8-22 The magnetic stripe on the back of credit cards and other
ID cards contain information that identifies you and the card.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Other Types of Storage (3 of 7)

Figure 8-23 Examples of contact and contactless smart cards and

their readers.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Other Types of Storage (4 of 7)

• The RFID tag consists of an antenna and a

memory chip that contains the information to be
transmitted via radio waves
• An RFID reader reads the radio signal and
transfers the information to a computer or
computing device

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Other Types of Storage (5 of 7)

Figure 8-24 An RFID reader reads radio signals from an RFID tag
that is affixed to this box.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Other Types of Storage (6 of 7)

• An NFC-enabled device contains an NFC chip

• An NFC tag contains a chip and an antenna that
contains information to be transmitted
• Most NFC tags are self-adhesive

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Other Types of Storage (7 of 7)

Figure 8-25 This NFC-enabled phone communicates with the NFC

reader to send a mobile payment.

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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Summary

• Variety of storage options

• Storage capacity and storage access times
• Characteristics of hard disks, SSDs, external hard
drives, and RAID
• Portable flash memory storage
• Advantages and various uses of cloud storage
• Characteristics of optical discs
• Enterprise storage options
• Magnetic stripe cards, smart cards, RFID tags, and
NFC chips and tags
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or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.