Component 3 - Key Definitions

Question 1

How different input, output and storage devices can be applied to the solution of different problems

Answer 1

Requires you to have a knowledge of common input and output devices – largely common sense.

Question 2

The uses of magnetic, flash and optical storage devices

Answer 2

Magnetic storage includes hard drives and backup tapes. Hard drives are largely being phased out in favour of solid state drives, even in server based systems as longevity and capacity increases as costs fall.
Flash storage is any non-volatile storage which uses flash memory chips to store data. Has huge advantages over other methods of storage including physical size (tiny), density of storage, low power requirements and robustness.
Optical storage is largely relegated to games consoles and tv connected media players. A range of discs which are read via a laser can be used to store data. Examples are DVD, CD and Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray is the most common standard for data storage due to its capacity of between 25-50gb

Question 3

RAM and ROM

Answer 3

RAM = Random Access Memory. Used to hold open, running programs and data. Has to be managed by the operating system to avoid programs over writing each other or, worse, accessing the data for another program. ROM = Read Only Memory. Used to hold program code in a non-volatile flash memory chip. Usually refers to the BIOS/UEFI which is the code used to boot up a system at power on.