Hardware

Question 1

What is a disk (Hardrive)?

Answer 1

It’s a mechanic device that stores information in the computer when turned off and can store info up to 2TB.

Question 2

What does hardisk drive compose of?

Answer 2

• metal platters spinning around
• It uses tiny magnetic particles where both north pole orientation represents 1 and south pole orientation represents 0.

Question 3

How does the HDD operate?

Answer 3

• Power is only needed to change or read the data in the magnetic particles.
• once data is off it’s automatically preserved.

Question 4

How is data stored in the hardrive?

Answer 4

• RAM sends instructions to the HDD
• the drive translates the data into voltage functions
• some signals spin the plattters, others move the read/write head that turns on a magnet which creates a field that changes the polarity of a tiny portion on the metal surface.
• power is then sent to different directions to change polarity.

Question 5

Can HDD be damaged?

Answer 5

• Yes by dropping or hitting it ir can corrupt files.

Question 6

What is a Solid State Disk (SDD) (Flash Memory)?

Answer 6

Its between a RAM and a Hardrive, a much faster and electronic type of technology that it loads programs and save info much faster. (See Less Hourglass figure on mouse)

Question 7

What are the limitation of an SDD?

Answer 7

• it won’t last long.
  it only has a certain number of writes.

Question 8

What is a hybrid drive?

Answer 8

• Some GB of solid state memory and more GB or TB of HDD space
  -Stores as much of frequently-needed data on the SSD
  -Stores less frequently needed data on HDD

Question 9

What are the different ways to externally store data?

Answer 9

• Hybrid drives
• Flash Memories (USB) - portable and can storemore then 16 GB-
• External SDD’s -stores more then 256 GB-

Question 10

What are the types of Memory in order?

Answer 10

• HDD
  -RAM
  -L3 cache
  -L2 cache
  -L1 cache
  -CPU
  This can be visualised as a funnel, where the top is slow and big but the bottom is fast and small. Info goes through this funnel to get to the CPU.

Question 11

What is the Cache?

Answer 11

It’s sort of a little storage where it holds info from the RAM to send to the CPU but holds it close to the CPU so it never runs out of tasks and is much faster than having to go back to the RAM every `time.

Question 12

What is an Operating System?

Answer 12

Its a software that ensures all devices can connect.
Ex: MacOS and windows

Question 13

Where is an OS stored?

Answer 13

On an HDD or an SDD

Question 14

What does the operating system do?

Answer 14

When opening a laptop the OS is loaded into RAM
- displays info on the screen
- talks to the keyboard and mouse
- moves things around in memory.