SECONDARY STORAGE DEVICES HANDOUT

TERMS USED

● Sector – is a pie shaped section of a disk that contains the amount of data that can be read at one time
by the drive
● Track – one of the concentric rings on a magnetic disk in which the data is stored

● Cylinder- is the parallel set of tracks in a hard drive that are accessible from one position of the
read/write heads. Read / Write Heads are the component that read data from or write data to the hard
drive platters.
● Buffer – an intermediate storage location where data is temporarily stored until it is ready to be used.
This is necessary because different parts of the computer system operate at different speeds.
● Access time – the amount of time it takes to complete a request for data to be retrieved from storage.

● Direct access – is a way of accessing data that is done by going to the exact location and reading only
the required data, thereby avoiding data that came before or after. Disk drives generally access data
on this way.
● Serial access – refers to accessing data in the order in which it was stored. This method is slower than
direct access but is used by magnetic tape drives. If it turns out that the data was stored in a particular
order, e.g. chronologically or alphabetically, we say that the data was accessed sequentially.
● IDE(Integrated Drive Electronics/ATA/PATA)- is a standard interface for connecting a motherboard
to storage devices such as hard drives and CD-ROM/DVD drives using a 40 pin cable. An IDE-
integrated controller sends an array of 512-byte blocks between the drive and motherboard.

● SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) - is a standard for connecting and transferring data
from hard disk drives (HDDs) to computer systems. A SATA drive transfers data in serial fashion
one bit at a time to its host, using a seven-pin data cable and 15-pin power cable.
● SCSI (Small Computer System Interface)- is a set of parallel interface standards which use a
controller to send and receive data and power to SCSI-enabled devices. SCSI is used for attaching
printers, disk drives, scanners and other peripherals to computers.

SECONDARY STORAGE DEVICES

Secondary Storage saves programs and data permanently, whereas primary storage uses main memory to
store data which is temporary. Secondary storage refers to the media and methods used to keep programs,
data and information available for future use. Every secondary storage device or medium requires its own
drive.
Storage Media: These are the physical hardware on which a computer keeps data, instructions and
information for future use. Examples are diskettes, hard disks, compact discs and tapes.

Storage Devices: Storage devices record and retrieve data and information to and from storage media.
Examples are cd drives, floppy disk drives, hard disk drives, dvd drives.

Types of Magnetic media:

Floppy disks: A floppy disk, also called a diskette, is a storage medium that uses a circle of thin plastic which is
magnetized in order to store data. The magnetized plastic is sealed in a rectangular plastic enclosure lined with fabric
that removes dust particles. Floppy disks are read and written to by a floppy disk drive (FDD) which uses a read write
head and data can be accessed directly.( Size 1.44 MB)
Magnetic Tape: Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording, made of a thin, magnetized coating on
a long, narrow strip of plastic film. This type of storage is used mainly by organizations and businesses that
need to copy important data that is being held on hard disks as hard disks can sometimes crash and become
corrupt. Magnetic Tape uses a fixed read write head and data is accessed sequentially which makes data
access slow. (Size is measured in GB)

Hard Disks: A hard disk is typically a stack of metal disks that are magnetized and is normally fixed
inside the main case of the computer. It can store a lot of data but you can only access the data if you use the
computer where it was originally stored unless that computer is connected to a network. People tend to use
the terms hard disk and hard drive interchangeably however, technically, the hard drive is the machinery that
enables you to access data stored on the hard disk.
The surface of a hard disk is divided into tracks and sectors by magnetic lines. The disks spin and a read
write head moves across each disk in the stack, guided by the track and sector markings. When it finds the
right spot it can read existing data or write new data to the disk. Data is accessed directly. (Size in GB and
Terabytes)

Types of Optical media:

Compact Discs:

Compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony
and released in 1982. The format was originally developed to store and play only sound recordings (CD-DA)
but was later adapted for storage of data (CD-ROM).

A CD-ROM is a CD that can be read by a computer with an optical drive. The "ROM" part of the term
means the data on the disc is "read-only," or cannot be altered or erased. Because of this feature and their
large capacity, CD-ROMs are a great media format for retail software. 700MB

CD-R (Compact Disc-Recordable) is a digital optical disc storage format. A CD-R disc is a compact disc
that can be written once and read arbitrarily many times.

A CD-RW disc is a compact disc that can be written, read arbitrarily many times, erased, and written again.
The technology was introduced in 1997.
Digital Versatile Discs: DVD is a digital optical disc storage format invented and developed in 1995. The
medium can store any kind of digital data and is widely used for software and other computer files as well as
video programs watched using DVD players. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than compact discs while
having the same dimensions. Prerecorded DVDs are mass-produced using molding machines that physically
stamp data onto the DVD. Such discs are a form of DVD-ROM because data can only be read and not
written or erased. Blank recordable DVD discs (DVD-R ) can be recorded once using a DVD recorder and
then function as a DVD-ROM. Rewritable DVDs ( DVD RW) can be recorded and erased many times.

COMPARISON OF STORAGE DEVICES AND MEDIA

Magnetic Floppy disk Hard disk CD or DVD

tape
Capacity Large (GB) Small (1.44 Large (several CD: 700 MB
MB) GB) DVD : 4.7 GB

Access Sequential Sequential/direct Sequential/direct Sequential/direct

Moving R/W Head X X
Fixed R/W Head X X
Laser beam used X
Magnetic X X X
Portable X X X
Expensive X

Storage Advantages Disadvantages

MAGNETIC MEDIA
Floppy disk
● Cheap ● Smallest storage
capacity
● Used everywhere
● Reads/writes data
● Light, fits in a pocket &
slowly
portable
Hard drive
● Stores/retrieves data ● Many not portable
quickly
● Stores much more
data than floppy disks
● Cheap on a cost per
MB basis
Magnetic tape
● Used on many ● Not generally used
networks to back up with desktop
data on hard disks computers
● Low-cost storage ● Slow- so only used for
network back-ups

OPTICAL STORAGE
CD-ROM
● Stores large amount of ● Read only
data
● Slower access times
● Very cheap to than hard drives so
produce, particularly video images generally
on a large scale not full screen
● Good way of ● Cannot read DVD
distributing software
CD-R
● Stores large amount of ● Must have a CD-R to
data write to a disk
 ● Possible to write/ add ● CD-R software has
data to the CD in more varying capabilities
than one session
● Good for backing up
files
CD-RW
● Stores large amount of ● Must have a CD-RW to
data write to a disk
● CD-RW can be erased ● CD-RW does not work
and reused as many in all CD players
times required
● Good for backing up
files
DVD
● Stores massive ● New technology, so
amount of data number of DVD’s in
use is smaller than
● Excellent for showing
number of CD-ROMS
video
● New technology, so
● DVD players can read
price of drives
CD-ROM relatively expensive
● DVD’s do not work in
CD-ROM drives

FLASH MEDIA:
Flash media use flash memory which is an electronic (solid-state) non-volatile computer storage medium
that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. Toshiba developed flash memory from EEPROM
(electrically erasable programmable read-only memory) in the early 1980s and introduced it to the market in
1984.

A USB flash drive is a portable data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB
interface.

A flash memory card (sometimes called a storage card) is a small storage device that uses nonvolatile
semiconductor memory to store data on portable or remote computing devices. Such data includes text,
pictures, audio and video.

A solid-state drive (SSD) is a new generation of storage device used in computers. SSDs store data using
flash-based memory, which is much faster than the traditional hard disks they've come to replace. SSDs
also have no moving parts, and upgrading to one is a great way to speed up your computer and make it
more resilient.
 UNITS OF STORAGE

WORD - A word is a fixed-sized piece of data that can be handled as a unit by the computer's CPU in one
cycle.

WORD SIZE- This refers to the number of bits contained in a word (typically 32 bits or 64 bits).