GQ6 Guiding Question 6

How does storage work, what different types of storage are there, where can one store information, and how does one prevent information from being lost? Create a backup plan that everyone should use to back-up their personal information and explain why your plan is better than any other plan.

Where can one store information, and how does one prevent information from

being lost?

BY: ANGUS MACAULAY

Storage Primary storage

Volatile Temporary

It loses all of its contents when power to the system unit is shut off.

Secondary storage Nonvolatile Permanent Writing : is the

process of saving information.

Reading: is the process of accessing information RAM

Where can one store information ?

Secondary

Storage Devices

Secondary storage characteristics

Media (actual physical material that holds the data and programs, Example: CD).

Capacity (measured how much a particular storage medium can hold)

Storage devices (are hardware that reads data and program from storage media)Access speed (measures the amount of time required by

storage device to retrieve data and program).

Floppy Disks

DiskettesFlexible disk and Floppies The plastic disk inside the

diskette cover is flexible

Portable storage mediaFloppy disk drives (FDD) Store data and programs

by altering the electromagnetic charges on the disk surface to represent ones and zeroes.

.

Traditional Floppy Disk

Types of Floppies High capacity Known as a floppy-disk

cartridge Require special disk

drives Three well known types

Zip disks (Iomega)100MB, 250MB, 750MB HiFD disks (Sony) 200MB, 720MB, read and store data

on 1.44MB disk

SuperDisks (Imation)240MB, 120MB

SuperDisks (Imation)

HiFD disks (Sony)

Zip disks (Iomega)

Hard Disks• Use thicker, metallic

platters for storage• Faster than a floppy

diskette• Large capacity

Sensitive instruments

• Removable hard disks • Used to complement

internal hard disk• Capacities of 10 to 20 GB

Internal Hard Disk Located inside system unit

Known as a fixed disk

Designated as the C drive

Advantages over floppies Access speed Capacity

Hard-Disk Cartridges

Optical Disks

Compact Permanent storage Optical disk use

reflected light. The 1s and 0s are

represented by flat areas called lands and bumpy areas called pits.

Two common types CD ( 650 MB to 1GB) DVD ( 4.7 GB to 17 GB)

Optical Disks

Compact Disc

Digital Versatile Disc

Optical format From 650 MB to 1 GB

capacity Rotation speeds vary

It determines how fast data can be transferred from the CD

24X or 24- speed CD drive can transfer 3.6 MB per second.

Types Read only: CD-ROM Write once: CD-R Rewriteable: CD-RW Picture CDs and Photo CDs

Digital Versatile Disk or Digital Video Disk (DVD)

Similar to CDs, but can store more data

Types Read only Write once Rewritable

Data PlayCD-R Optical disk Write once format Quarter size

500 MB capacity Holds 5 hours of CD-quality

sound Use for storing and playing music

files Data play format ( search

for it)

Blu-Ray Technology

Blu-Ray Disks use blue laser light instead of the

red laser light used in traditional CD players

Disks may ultimately hold Over 30GB on one-sided disks Over 50GB on two-sided disks

Other Types of Secondary Storage

Solid-State

Storage Flash memory (CF) cards Secure Digital (SD cards Sony memory stick

In addition to still and video digital cameras, many mobile phones, tablets, netbooks, media players, audio recorders and televisions now also have slots for reading and writing a flash memory card.

• USB memory sticks (or USB memory keys, USB memory drives, or whatever you choose to call them!) are basically a combination of a flash memory card and a flash memory card reader in one handy and tiny package. Over the past five years, USB memory sticks have also become the dominant means of removable, re-writable portable data storage, and look set to remain so for some time.

www.explainingcomputers.com/storage.html

NETWORK AND ONLINE STORAGE

CLOUD STORAGE

In the home, back-up to a server is also now an option for many. Many home users are now storing at least some of their data out on the Internet. And even those not using online applications and processing power now have the option of backing up moderate amounts of data online, and often for free!

Files stored and/or backed-up online are still saved to a hard disk rather than to some magic, new alternative media. However, the fact that the disk is located remotely to your computer, can be accessed from anywhere, and is probably backed up by the service provider(?), can make online storage and back-up very attractive

http://www.explainingcomputers.com/storage.html

How does one prevent information from being

lost?Effective storage protocol involves taking physical security measures (to ensure media are not stolen or damaged), minimizing the risk and implications of error, failure or loss (for example by developing a resilient back-up strategy), appropriate user authentication (for example by employing strong pass wording), and possibly the encryption of sensitive files.

Lost data, information and storage threats

Operator error (for example a user inadvertently deleting the wrong file).

Media failure (either as a result of wear-and-tear, old age or accidental damage).

Theft or sabotage (of data or its media). Hackers (who obtain unauthorized online access via

the Internet). Malware (any form of virus, and including "Trojan" e-

mail attachments that users are encouraged to open). Power surges and/or outages (which are one of the

most common means of hard disk corruption and hardware damage).

Flood, fire, storm or other natural disasters..

www.explainingcomputers.com/security.html

Keeping your data and information

While physical threats need to be protected against, most data is lost or corrupted following user error or hardware failure. The best defense against this is an appropriate back-up strategy, users need to ensure that they take regular backs-ups at regular intervals and before and after making key data changes. They also need to store multiple back-ups on different media in different locations. There is no such thing as a permanent store of any form of computer data. Nor is any storage location entirely safe (although the cloud data centers run by Google, Amazon, IBM, Microsoft and other computing industry giants are pretty well protected these days!).

www.explainingcomputers.com/security.html

References

All Terms, Definitions and Descriptions came from Information obtained from these sources: Bus 101 Class Textbook, COMPUTERS Are Your

Future, LaBerta. Wickopedia What is .com, http://whatis.techtarget.com/ www.explainingcomputers.com/storage.ht

ml www.explainingcomputers.com/security.ht

ml

Illustrations : Google Images Bing Images