1.3 Storage Flashcards
What is secondary storage?
Storage location which permanently stores OS, programs and data.
What is the purpose of secondary storage?
To use the data later.
To use the software.
To interact with the computer.
How do optical drives work?
A laser light marks patterns into the disk which represent 0’s and 1’s.
Then the laser light detects where the marks are and translates them into a readable format.
How do magnetic drives work?
They read / write across the medium and change how magnetised that part of the medium is.
Each level of magnetism represents 0’s and 1’s.
What are the properties (made up of and characteristics) of solid state/flash drives?
They are made up of silicon microchips (switches).
They are fast but the most expensive and have no moving parts.
On = 1.
Off = 0.
How much data does one character represent?
1 byte per character.
What percentage overheads do you need when calculating data?
10%.
But only use if the question specifies.
