Storage and Media

Question 1

Storage and Media


Answer 1

You can compare storage me- dia to a file cabinet. Recording data onto media like a hard disk or CD allows it to be stored there even when the power is turned off.

Question 2

ATA

Answer 2

A subset of the IDE disk drive protocols.

Question 3

CD Disc

Answer 3

A mirrored plastic disc which holds approximate- ly 650 MB of data.

Question 4

CD Drive

Answer 4

A type of drive used to read data (or sound) record- ed on a CD-ROM disc.

Question 5

CD-R:

Answer 5

Compact Disc-Record- able. A CD-R disc can be recorded on once, but can’t be erased.

Question 6

CD-ROM

Answer 6

Compact Disc-Read Only Memory. A CD-ROM disc can be read by the computer but cannot be erased or recorded on.

Question 7

CD-RW

Answer 7

Compact Disc-Read and Write. A CD-RW disc can be recorded on, erased, and recorded on again.

Question 8

Disk drive

Answer 8

This could be a diskette drive or could refer to a hard drive. Apple made his- tory by introducing the diskette drive (invented by Sony). Apple made history again when they stopped including diskette dri- ves in favor of CD-RW drives.

Question 9

DVD Disc

Answer 9

A mirrored plastic disc which holds approximate- ly 4.2 GB of data.

Question 10

DVD Drive

Answer 10

This type of drive can play feature-length movies as well as read computer data or music.

Question 11

DVD-R

Answer 11

This type of drive can play and record videos as well as read computer data or mu- sic.

Question 12

Flash Drive

Answer 12

This “drive” con- tains a special type of memory chip called flash memory. It retains data after the power source has been removed. It has no moving parts, and plugs in to the computer’s USB port. Sometimes called a thumb drive, flash drives are available as keychain attach- ments, as neckwear, or in a ballpoint pen.

Question 13

GB, Gigabyte

Answer 13

A unit of mea- sure for data capacity, approx- imately equal to one-thousand, twenty-four megabytes.

Question 14

Hard drive

Answer 14

The storage device where documents are saved and where all of your ap- plications are kept. Hard drive space was once measured in Megabytes like RAM, but most hard drives are bigger now and are measured in Gigabytes (GB). One GB is roughly equal to 1,000 MB.

Hard drives have further specifications indicating their type and speed. Faster speeds (fewer nanoseconds) mean that the disk takes less time to find the information you need. Un- less you are editing music or video almost any hard drive sold today will be fast enough. The same principle applies to drive types such as SCSI, IDE, Ultra ATA, or Fast and Wide SCSI.

Don’t let a smaller drive keep you from buying a com- puter if everything else about it matches your needs. You can externally store files you need less often, or you can add an- other hard drive.

Question 15

KB, Kilobyte

Answer 15

A unit of mea- sure for data capacity, equal to one thousand, twenty-four bytes. Casually referred to as being equal to a thousand bytes.

Question 16

MB, Megabyte

Answer 16

A unit of mea- sure for data capacity, equal to one thousand, twenty-four kilobytes. Casually referred to as being equal to a thousand kilobytes.

Question 17

Nanosecond

Answer 17

A unit of time measurement indicating a bil- lionth of a second.

Question 18

Optical Drive

Answer 18

Any drive which reads DVD or CD discs.

Question 19

SSD (Solid State Drive

Answer 19

A data storage device with no moving parts. Some laptops use an SSD in place of a hard drive to make batteries last longer. Because they use large amounts of Flash memory, SSD drives cost more than conven- tional hard disks.