Secondary storgage Flashcards
Explain the difference between the two main categories of computer storage.
The main difference between internal and external storage is that one is directly accessible by the processor (internal) and the other is connected to the processor using I/O controller (external).
Describe the main functional characteristics of a magnetic hard disk drive.
- Hard metallic disk: to protect them form being corrupted by dust or other debris
- Thin film of magnetic material: change direction of magnetism that represents zeros and ones
- Hard disks spin (at speeds between 3600 and 12 500 rpm): as a series of heads read from and write to the disks, heads do not actually touch the surface of the disk as it spins.
You must not use the term USB when discussing storage devices. Write below why not?
USB refers to connection type rather than storage type.
Find out three operational characteristics of SSD and make some notes
- Made up of semiconductors; they’re entirely electronic and have no mechanical/ moving parts.
- High speed data transfer can be achieved .
- Solid state disk
- Blocks data: moved to RAM
Why would you not defragment an SSD?
As there are no physical sectors and SSD never needs to be defragmented, which means that its performance will not degrade overtime as the disk gets full and it wont take long to find the blocks of data.
Explain 3 advantages of SSD compared to magnetic hard drive
- Has no moving parts (more robust): it uses flash memory to store data, which provides better performance and reliability.
- Generates less heat compared to things such as HDD
- Easy to install
- More portable
Explain 3 disadvantages of SSD compared to magnetic hard drive
- More expensive than hard disk drives
- Limited storage capacity
- Shorter life span than hard disk drives because of limited right operations.
Disc access times on a personal computer can increase when the disc is nearly full to capacity. Describe in detail why saving a large file to a disc that is nearly full might be slower than saving a large file to a nearly empty disc.
A nearly full disk has a limited amount of space left; therefore the large file to be saved to the disk will have to be separated fragmented to different locations on the disk. This takes up a lot more time compared to a nearly empty disc as there is more storage all together but also locations on the disk that are closer together. Therefore in a nearly empty disc the large file will not have to be fragmented as much compared to a nearly full disc.
Describe in detail how the disc access speed of a nearly full disc could be increased.
The disc could be defragmented which means moving parts of a file closer together (on the same track if possible) to reduce read/ write head movement and therefore reduce access times.
Briefly explain why Solid State Drives (SSD) do not suffer from this problem.
Solid state drives can access data more quickly because they have no moving parts. Therefore whole files can be accessed at once together.
Why would you upgrade from 4 GB of RAM to 8 GB of RAM in a personal computer?
RAM is for storing programs on your computer that are currently being run and for data that is currently being processed.
By recommending an increase in RAM you get a higher speed of tasks completed (more tasks will be able to happen at once).
Why would you upgrade from the standard 1 terabyte hard disc drive to a 4 terabyte hard disc drive. Also briefly describe the role of the hard disc drive in a personal computer and explain why this upgrade would be recommended.
- Hard disc: store data and programs long term (even when computer is turned off)
It holds more data which will be required if storing many large files such as videos
Another recommendation is to upgrade to a processor with a word size of 64 bits instead of the standard 32 bits. Briefly explain why this upgrade would be recommended.
By increasing the word size the number of bits that the processor can process simultaneously will increase.
Another recommendation is to upgrade to a Solid State Drive (SSD) which has no moving parts. Briefly explain why an SSD would be recommended instead of a traditional hard disc drive.
SSD provides better performance and reliability.
Cloud storage, hard disc storage and
external hard disc
Describe the advantages of the above methods of storage
- Hard disc: No need of internet connection to use because there is no need for internet connection there is no buffering to slow you down from accessing files; fast access to files.
Drawback: because files are kept on tis device; if hard disc goes missing the backed up files cannot be accessed. - Cloud storage: The data is backed up by online providers
Drawbacks: Internet connection is needed to access files - limited capacity of files that can be stored
