1.1.3 Hardware: Storage requirements

Question 1

What is a half-byte called? (4 bits)

Answer 1

A nibble (Also known as a Nybble).

Question 2

How many bits are in a byte?

Answer 2

8 bits.

Question 3

What is the term for 1,024 bytes?

Answer 3

A Kilobyte.

Question 4

What is the term for 1,024 Kilobytes?

Answer 4

A Megabyte.

Question 5

What is the term for 1,024 Megabytes?

Answer 5

A Gigabyte.

Question 6

What is the term for 1,024 Gigabytes?

Answer 6

A Terabyte.

Question 7

What is the term for 1,024 Terabytes?

Answer 7

A petabyte.

Question 8

What is the term for 1,024 Petabytes?

Answer 8

An Exabyte.

Question 9

What is the term for 1,024 Exabytes?

Answer 9

A Zettabyte.

Question 10

What is the term for 1,024 Zettabytes?

Answer 10

A Yottabyte.

Question 11

What are the advantages, disadvantages, typical capacities and use cases of a magnetic hard disk? (HDD)

Answer 11

Cheap, 500GB-12TB, Slow, Internal or External storage (External HDDs are portable), Prone to drops, very reliable in good conditions.

Typically used for long-term storage of programs and data.

Question 12

What are the advantages, disadvantages, typical capacities and use cases of a CD optical disk? (CD)

Answer 12

Very cheap, 640MB, Very slow, Very portable, Easily scratched, Very reliable in good conditions.

Typically used for backups, archives, copies of data or distribution of programs and music.

Question 13

What are the advantages, disadvantages, typical capacities and use cases of a DVD optical disk? (DVD)

Answer 13

Cheap-Expensive, 4.7GB, Slow, Very portable, Easily scratched, Very reliable in good conditions.

Typically used for backups, copies of data, distribution of games, TV programmes and movies.

Question 14

What are the advantages, disadvantages, typical capacities and use cases of a Solid State Drive? (SSD)

Answer 14

Expensive-Very expensive, 256GB-4TB, Very fast, Internal or External storage (External SSDs are very portable), Robust and resilient, Very reliable.

Typically used for long-term storage of programs and data where high performance is required.

Question 15

What are the advantages, disadvantages, typical capacities and use cases of a USB flash drive? (USB Memory Stick)

Answer 15

Cheap-Expensive, 2GB-2TB, Fast, Very portable, Robust and resilient, Reliable.

Typically used for copying data or transferring files between computers.

Question 16

What are the advantages, disadvantages, typical capacities and use cases of an SD card?

Answer 16

Cheap-Expensive, 4GB-1TB, Fast, Very portable, Robust and resilient, Reliable.

Typically used for storing photos taken on a digital camera.

Question 17

What is the difference between volatile and non-volatile memory?

Answer 17

Volatile memory (i.e Main Memory) is not persistent. A loss of power to a volatile memory chip will cause all data to be lost. (A good way to remember: Stocks are volatile- they go up and down, or drop to nothing).

Hence, non-volatile memory (i.e SSD storage) is persistant and will remain in place even after loss of power to the memory chip.

Question 18

What are the differences between RAM and ROM?

Answer 18

• RAM is able to be read from and written to, whereas ROM can only be read from.