Storage - ICT
Storage - ICT
Optical storage
Optical storage includes
CD
CD-ROM
CD-R
CD-RW
DVD
DVD-ROM
DVD-R
DVD-RW
Compact disc (CD)
The main formats of CD are the following:
Compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM)
Data is written only once to a compact disc but it can be replayed any number of
times.
Recordable CDs
A laser beam in a CD drive stores or burns data onto the surface of a CD and is also
used to read data from the disc.
Digital versatile disc (DVD)
A DVD is similar to a CD but can store a larger amount of data. The main formats of
DVD are the following:
Read-only DVD (DVD-ROM)
Data is written only once to a compact disc but it can be replayed any number of
times.
DVD-Recordable (DVD-R)
Data can be written to the disc once only. However, data can be read any number of
times.
High capacity optical storage media
Blu-ray disc (BD)
It is similar to CD and DVD media but its storage capacity is higher, for example, a
single layer Blu-ray disc can store 25GB and a double layer Blu-ray disc can store up
to 50GB of data.
Magnetic storage
Magnetic storage media includes the following:
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Internal hard disk drive
External hard disk drive
Network attached storage (NAS)
Magnetic tape
Hard disk drive (HDD)
A HDD is the main storage device in a computer and can be used for storing and
retrieving digital data. There are two categories of hard disk drive, one that is located
inside a computer and one that is located in a separate unit and can be connected to
a computer. Let’s investigate each type.