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Fundamentals of Computers and IT

Paper Code 105
UNIT – 1

Secondary Storage Devices

Chapter 8: P. K. Sinha
Chapter 3: Anita Goel
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Fundamentals of Computers and IT

UNIT – 1
Fundamentals of Computers:

Definition and Characteristics of Computer System, Computer Generation from First Generation to Fifth
Generation. Classifications of Computers: Micro, Mini, Mainframe and super computers.

Computer Hardware: Major Components of a digital computer, Block Diagram of a computer, Input-
output devices, Description of Computer Input Units, Output Units, CPU.

Computer Memory: Memory Hierarchy, Primary Memory - RAM and its types, ROM and its types,
Secondary Memory, Cache Memory, Secondary Storage Devices- Hard disk, Compact Disk, DVD, Flash
memory.
 Secondary Memory (Auxiliary Memory )
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 The need of secondary memory arises due to the basic 2 reasons of Primary memory i.e.

1. Limited capacity as the cost bit of storage is high &

2. Volatile in nature i.e., data stored in it is lost when the power is turned off or due to any kind of failure.

 Secondary memory which is also known as Auxiliary memory is used to overcome the limitations of
primary memory.

❖ It is used to store large volume of data on a permanent basis.

❖ It has virtually unlimited capacity because the cost per bit of storage is very low

❖ It has an operating speed far slower than that of the primary storage

❖ It is non-volatile memory

❖ It is slower than Primary memories

❖ Used for backup purposes

Example are stored disk, magnetic tapes, floppy devices, CD ROM etc.
 Access Mechanism
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(Access means read/write of data)

1. Sequential Access 2. Random/Direct Access

 The accessing of data/information will be in  Any location in storage can be accessed at any
serial order, one after another, starting from time in approximately the same amount of time.
the beginning
 Well suited for Primary & Secondary storage.
 Example: Magnetic tape.
 Example: Magnetic disk, Optical disk, Primary
memory.
 Classification of commonly used Secondary Storage Devices

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Direct/Random Access Storage Device
MAGNETIC DISKS, OPTICAL DISKS, MEMORY STORAGE
DEVICES
 I. Magnetic Disks
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• Commonly used direct-access secondary storage device.

• Physically, a magnetic disk is a thin, circular plate/platter made of metal or

plastic that is usually coated on both sides with a magnetizable recording
material such as iron-oxide

• Data are recorded on the disk in the form of tiny invisible magnetized and
non-magnetized spots (representing 1s and 0s) on the coated surfaces of
the disk

• The disk is stored in a specially designed protective envelope or cartridge,

or several of them are stacked together in a sealed, contamination-free
container
 Organisation of Magnetic Disk

8 • A disk’s surface is divided into a number of invisible concentric circles

called tracks

• The tracks are numbered consecutively from outermost to innermost

starting from zero

• The number of tracks on a disk may be as few as 40 on small, low-

capacity disks, to several thousand on large, high-capacity disks
 Organisation of Magnetic Disk

• Each track of a disk is subdivided into sectors

• There are 8 or more sectors per track

• A sector typically contains 512 bytes

• Disk drives are designed to read/write only whole sectors at a time

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Magnetic Disk – Disk Address or
Address of a Record on a Disk
 Disk address represents the physical location of the record on the disk
 It is comprised of the sector number, track number, and surface number
(when double-sided disks are used)
 This scheme is called the CHS addressing or Cylinder Head-Sector
addressing. The same is also referred to as disk geometry
 Magnetic Disk – Storage Organization
11 (Illustrates the Concept of Cylinder)

 The disk drive consists of a read/write head that is attached with disk arm.
 During reading/writing the motor of the drive rotates at very high speed.
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 Features of Magnetic Disk
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• It is a cheap storage device

• Can store large amount of data

• Easy to carry or transport

• Fast access device

Storage capacity =
no. of recording surfaces X no. of tracks/surface X no. of sectors/track X no. of
bytes/sector
14 Question

A disk pack has 10 disk platters/plates, 2655 tracks per plate, 125 sectors
per track and 512 bytes per sector. What will be the capacity of the disk in
terms of Bytes and Giga byte (billion of characters)?

Storage Capacity = 18 x 2655 X 125 X 512

= 3,058,560,000 Bytes = 3 X 109 (Approximately) = 3GB

Storage capacity =
no. of recording surfaces X no. of tracks/surface X no. of sectors/track X no. of
bytes/sector
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 Access Time
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Accessing data on the disk requires the following:
 The read/write head is positioned to the desired track where the data is to be read
from or written to. The time taken to move the read/write head to the desired track is
called the seek time.
 Once the read/write head is at the right track, then the head waits for right sector to
come under it (disk is moving at high speed). The time taken for desired sector of the
track to come under read/write head is called the latency time.
 Once the read/write head is positioned at the right track and sector, the data has to be
written to disk or read from disk. The rate at which data is written to disk or read from
disk is called data transfer rate.
 The sum of seek time, latency time and time for data transfer is the access time of
the disk

Access time = Seek time + Latency Time + Transfer time

17 Disk Formatting
Process of preparing a new disk by the computer system in which the disk is to
be used. For this, a new (unformatted) disk is inserted in the disk drive of the
computer system and the disk formatting command is initiated
 Low-level disk formatting
▪ Disk drive’s read/write head lays down a magnetic pattern on the disk’s
surface
▪ Enables the disk drive to organize and store the data in the data
organization defined
for the disk drive of the computer
 OS-level disk formatting
▪ To store files and data on a disk, OS creates a file system on the disk.
▪ It maintains a table known as File Allocation Table (FAT), with the
sector and track locations of data on the disk.
▪ FAT enables the computer to locate the data easily
 Disk Drive
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 A Unit used for reading/writing of data on/from a magnetic disk

 Contains all the mechanical, electrical and electronic components for holding one or
more disks and for reading or writing of information on to it
 Although disk drives vary greatly in their shape, size and disk formatting pattern, they can
be broadly classified into two types:
▪ Disk Drives with interchangeable magnetic disks, which allow the loading and
unloading of magnetic disks as and when they are needed for reading/writing of
data on to them
▪ Disk drives with fixed magnetic disks, which come along with a set of permanently
fixed disks. The disks are not removable from their disk drives
19 Disk Controller

 Disk drive is connected to and controlled by a disk controller, which

interprets the commands for operating the disk drive
 Typically supports only read and write commands, which need disk
address (surface number, cylinder/track number, and sector number)
as parameters
 Connected to and controls more than one disk drive, in which case
the disk drive number is also needed as a parameters of read and
write commands
20 Types of Magnetic Disk
 Types of Magnetic Disk
21 1. Floppy Disk (FD):

• It is a flat, round, single disk coated with magnetic oxide which is encased in a square plastic cover for
protection to the disk surface.

• FDD (Floppy Disk Drive) is the drive for floppy disk to read & write data to/from FD.

• They are portable, small & inexpensive.

• It came into 2 sizes

• Storage Capacity of 3.5” = 400 KB to 1.44 MB usually contains 40 tracks and 18 sectors/track and can store
512 bytes/sector.
• Storage Capacity of 5.25”= 360 KB to 1.2 MB
 Types of Magnetic Disk
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2. Hard Disk (HD):

• Hard disks are primary on-line secondary storage device for most computer system today. They are made up of rigid metal
(aluminum metal) platters and come in many sizes ranging from 1 to 14 inch diameter.

• It consists of one or more platters divided into tracks & sectors, which is mounted a central shaft like a stack.

• Disk drives have separate read/write head for each usable disk surface

• The disk is not removable from the drive.

• Hard disk can spin at the speed of up to 10,000 revolutions per minute and have an access time of 9-14 ms.

• It stores 512 bytes per sector but the number of sectors are more per track (54 or more) than floppy disk.
23 Types of Hard disks

Depending on how they are packaged, hard disks are of three types:

❑ Zip/Bernoulli disks

❑ Disk packs

❑ Winchester disks
24 1. Zip/Bernoulli disks
 It consists of a single hard disk platter encased in a plastic cartridge

 Disk drives/ Zip drive may be portable or fixed type

 Fixed type is part of the computer system, permanently connected to it

 Portable type can be carried to a computer system, connected to it for the

duration of use, and then can be disconnected and taken away when the
work is done

 Zip disks can be easily inserted/removed from a zip drive just as we

insert/remove Video cassette in a Video cassette player.
25 2. Disk Pack

 It consists of multiple (two or more) hard disk platters mounted

on a single central shaft

 Disk drives have a separate read/write head for each usable

disk surface (the upper surface of the top-most disk and the
lower surface of the bottom most disk is not used)

 Disks are of removable/interchangeable type in the sense that

they have to be mounted on the disk drive before they can be
used, and can be removed and kept off-line when not in use
26 3. Winchester Disk

 It consists of multiple (two or more) hard disk platters mounted on a single

central shaft

 Hard disk platters and the disk drive are sealed together in a
contamination-free container and cannot be separated from each other
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30 II. Optical Disk
• It consists of a circular disk, which is coated with reflective plastic material that can be altered
by laser light.
• Laser beam technology is used for recording/reading data on the disk Fig: Track Pattern in

• It is a Random Access Storage device for high capacity secondary storage because it can Optical Disk
contain extremely large amount of data.
• It has one long spiral track, which starts at the outer edge & spirals inward to the center.
• The track is divided into equal sized sector.
• The access time of an Optical disk ranges from 100 to 200 ms.
• CD-ROM is the most common type of Optical Disk.

Storage capacity = no. of sectors X no. of bytes per sector

The most popular optical disk uses a disk of 5.25 inch diameter has 3,30,000 sectors each of 2352
bytes, making its storage capacity
3,30,000 X 2352 = 776 X 106 Bytes = 776 Mega Bytes (MB).
This is unformatted capacity. Formatted capacity is of around 650 Megabytes.
31 Figure: Sectors and track in magnetic disk and optical disk
32 Advantages of Optical Disk

• The cost-per-bit of storage for optical disks is very low because of their low cost
and enormous storage density.
• The use of a single spiral track makes optical disks an ideal storage medium for
reading large blocks of sequential data, such as music.
• Optical disk drives do not have any mechanical read/write heads to rub against
or crash into the disk surface. This makes optical disks a more reliable storage
medium than magnetic tapes or magnetic disks.
• Optical disks have a data storage life in excess of 30 years.
• This makes them a better storage medium for data archiving as compared to
magnetic tapes or magnetic disks.
• Due to their compact size and light weight, optical disks are easy to handle,
store, and port from one place to another
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Limitations of Optical Disk

• It is largely read-only (permanent) storage medium.

• Data once recorded, cannot be erased and hence the optical disks
cannot be reused

• The data access speed for optical disks is slower than magnetic disks

• Optical disks require a complicated drive mechanism

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Types of Optical Disk
 1. CD-ROM

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• Stands for Compact-Disk Read Only Memory.

• Packaged as shiny, silver color metal disk of 5¼ inch (12cm)

diameter, having a storage capacity of about 650 Megabytes

• It is an optical disk that can only be read and not written on.

• Disks come pre-recorded by the manufacturer, by a process called

mastering.

• The storage density of CD-ROM is very high and cost is low as

compared to hard disk & floppy disk.

• Provide an excellent medium to distribute large amounts of data in Fig: CD-ROM

electronic form at low cost.

• The access speed is slower than the magnetic disk.

• CD-ROM drives can read data at 150Kbps. They come in multiples of

this speed like—2x, 4x, 52x, 75x, etc.
36 2. WORM Disk / CD-Recordable (CD-R)
37 3. CD-Read/Write (CD-RW)
 4. Digital Video / Versatile Disk (DVD)
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Fig: DVD
 III. MEMORY STORAGE DEVICES
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1. Flash Drive (Pen Drive)

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2. Memory Card (SD/MMC)

B. Sequential Access Storage Device
MAGNETIC TAPE
 I. Magnetic Tape
42 (A Sequential Access Storage Device)
Introduction:
• Magnetic tape is a plastic tape/ribbon with magnetic coating which is usually ½ inch or ¼ inch wide and
50 to 2400 feet long ribbon

• The ribbon is coated with magnetic material such as iron-oxide

• Magnetic tapes are cheaper storage media.

• They are durable, can be written, erased, and re-written.
• Magnetic tapes are sequential access devices, which mean that the tape needs to rewind or move
forward to the location where the requested data is positioned in the magnetic tape.
• Due to their sequential nature, magnetic tapes are not suitable for data files that need to be revised or
updated often.
• They are generally used to store back-up data that is not frequently used or to transfer data from one
system to other.
 Magnetic Tape
(A Sequential Access Storage Device)
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Working of Magnetic tape

1) Magnetic tape is divided horizontally into (7 or 9) tracks and vertically into frames.

2) A frame stores one byte of data and a track in a frame stores one bit.

3) Data is stored in successive frames as a string with one data (byte) per frame.

Figure: A portion of magnetic tape

Figure: A 10.5 inch reel of 9-track tape


 Magnetic Tape
(A Sequential Access Storage Device)
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Working of Magnetic tape contd..

4) Data is recorded on tape in the form of blocks, where a block consists of a group of data also called as records.
Each block is read continually. There is an Inter-Record Gap(IRG) between two blocks that provides time for the
tape to be stopped and started between records.

5) Magnetic tape is mounted on a magnetic tape drive for access.

 Storage capacity of a tape = Data recording density × Length

Where Data Recording Density is the amount of data that can be stored on a given length of tape. It is measured in
bytes/inch (BPI)
45 Magnetic Tape – Data Transfer Rate

 Refers to characters/second that can be transmitted to the memory from

the tape
 Transfer rate measurement unit is bytes/second (bps)
 Value depends on the data recording density and the speed with which
the tape travels under the read/write head
 A typical value of data transfer rate is 7.7 MB/second
46 Magnetic Tape – Tape Drive

 Used for writing/reading of data to/from a magnetic tape ribbon

 Different for tape reels, cartridges, and cassettes
 Has read/write heads for reading/writing of data on tape
 A magnetic tape reel/cartridge/cassette has to be first loaded on a tape
drive for reading/writing of data on it
 When processing is complete, the tape is removed from the tape drive for
off-line storage
47 Magnetic Tape – Tape Controller
 Tape drive is connected to and controlled by a tape controller that interprets the commands for
operating the tape drive
 A typical set of commands supported by a tape controller are:
Read: reads one block of data
Write: writes one block of data
Write tape header label: used to update the contents of tape header label
Erase tape: erases the data recorded on a tape
Back space: one block rewinds the tape to the beginning of previous block
Forward space one block: forwards the tape to the beginning of next block
Forward space one file: forwards the tape to the beginning of next file
Rewind fully rewinds the tape
Unload: releases the tape drive’s grip so that the tape spool can be unmounted from the tape drive
48 Types of Magnetic Tape

½-inch tape reel

½-inch tape cartridge
 ¼-inch streamer tape
4-mm digital audio tape (DAT)
 Magnetic Tape
(A Sequential Access Storage Device)
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Features of Magnetic tape:

• Can store large amount of Data.

• Inexpensive storage device

• Slow access device

• Not suitable for random access

• Easy to carry or transport

• Suitable for Backup storage

• Needs dust prevention because dust can harm tape.

 Advantages of Magnetic Tape
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 Limitations of Magnetic Tape
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 Uses of Magnetic Tape
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