LECTURE 10

Storage Devices
 Secondary Storage Devices
2

 Two major types of secondary storage devices:

1. Direct Access Storage Devices (DASDs)
 Magnetic Discs
Hard disks (high capacity, low cost, fast)
Floppy disks (low capacity, lower cost, slow)
 Optical Disks
CD-ROM = (Compact disc, read-only memory
2. Serial Devices
 Magnetic tapes (very fast sequential access)
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Types of Storage Device
 Sequential Access: In sequential access storage devices, data can be
accessed in sequential manner only.
And the time taken to read from a particular location will be dependant on
the location last accessed.
Sequential access devices are usually used for backup purpose only, where
frequent access of information is not required.
 Random Access: Random Access storage devices allow retrieval of
content from any location in the same amount of time is independent of content's
location...
 Secondary Storage Devices
8-4
Magnetic Storage
 Recording of data onto
disks or tape by
magnetizing particles of
an oxide based surface
coating.
 A fairly permanent type
of storage that can be
modified.
 Organization of Disks
6

 Disk contains concentric tracks.

 Tracks are divided into sectors
 A sector is the smallest addressable unit in a
disk.

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 Sector, Cluster & Track
7
 Looking at a surface
8

tracks

sector

Surface of disk showing tracks and sectors

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 Cylinders
9

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 Clusters
10

 Usually File manager, under the operating system,

maintains the logical view of a file.
 File manager views the file as a series of clusters,
each of a number of sectors. The clusters are ordered
by their logical order.
 Files can be seen in the form of logical sectors or
blocks, which needs to be mapped to physical clusters.
 File manager uses a file allocation table (FAT) to map
logical sectors of the file to the physical clusters.
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 Floppy Disks
8-11

 Diskettes
 Floppies
 Portable storage media
 Floppy disk drives Traditional Floppy Disk
(FDD)
 Magnetic storage device – Floppy disk
 Floppy disk : It can only store up 1.44Mb of data. All disks must be formatted before data can be written to the
disk. Formatting divides the disk up into sections or sectors onto which data files are stored.
 Advantage :
 Small & light – easy to carry
 Cheap
 Useful for transferring small files
 Can be used many times
 Security tab to stop data from being written over
 Disadvantage :
× Easy to be damage
× Small storage capacity
× Many new computer don’t have floppy disk drives
× Can transport viruses from one machine to another
× Slow to access and retrieve data when compared to a hard disk
× Data can be erased if the disk comes into contact with a magnetic field
Floppy Disk
 Round piece of flexible
Mylar plastic covered with a
thin layer of magnetic oxide
and sealed inside a protective
covering.
 May be referred to as a
“floppy”

 3½ disk capacity is 1.44 MB

or 1,440,000 bytes
 Traditional Floppy Diskette
8-14
Cont..
1. Capacity indication
2. Hub
3. Shutter
4. Plastic housing
5. Paper ring
6. Magnetic disk
7. Disk sector
16
HARD DISK
Absorption point Media Platter

Screw Spindle Motor

Media Arm
Head

Stepper Motor
 Hard Disks
8-17

 Use thicker, metallic platters for storage

 Faster than a floppy diskette

 Large capacity

 Sensitive instruments
 Hard-Disk Packs
8-18

 Removable
 Massive storage capacity
 Common in mainframes
 Resembles stack of vinyl records
 Hard-Disk Pack
8-19
 Magnetic storage device –

Hard disk
Hard disk : the main storage device in computer. It is a bit like a filing cabinet: all of your data
files and applications software are stored on it. It contains a number of metal platters which have
been coated with a special magnetic material. The data is stored in this magnetic material.
 Fixed hard discs : Used to store operating systems, software and working data. Any application
which requires very fast access to data for both reading and writing to. Not for applications which
need portability. Used for online and real time processes requiring direct access. Used in file
servers for computer networks.
 Portable hard discs : Any application which requires extremely large storage capacity where
speed of access is not an issue. Uses serial access for reading and writing. Used for backups of
file servers for computer networks. Used in a variety of batch processing applications such as
reading of bank cheques, payroll processing and general stock control.
 Advantage :
 Disadvantage :
 Magnetic Disks
21

 Bits of data (0’s and 1’s) are stored on circular

magnetic platters called disks.
 A disk rotates rapidly (& never stops).
 A disk head reads and writes bits of data as they
pass under the head.
 Often, several platters are organized into a disk
pack (or disk drive).
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 A Disk Drive
22

surfaces

Spindle Boom
Read/Write heads

Disk drive with 4 platters and 8 surfaces and 8 RW heads

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 Components of a Disk
Spindle
Disk head Tracks
The platters spin (say, 90rps).


 The arm assembly is moved in or out

Sector
to position a head on a desired track.
Tracks under heads make a cylinder
(imaginary!).
Platters
Arm movement
 Only one head reads/writes
at any one time.

Arm assembly
Block size is a multiple
of sector size (which is often fixed).
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 Accessing Data
24

 When a program reads a byte from the disk, the

operating system locates the surface, track and sector
containing that byte, and reads the entire sector into a
special area in main memory called buffer.
 The bottleneck of a disk access is moving the
read/write arm.
 So it makes sense to store a file in tracks that are
below/above each other on different surfaces, rather than in
several tracks on the same surface.
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 External Hard Disk
25
26

Secondary Storage Devices:

Magnetic Tapes

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Magnetic storage device – Magnetic Tape
 Magnetic Tape : uses 'serial access' to find a piece of data. It works in much the same way as a video
tape. To find a specific piece of data, you have to start at the beginning of the tape and continue fast
forwarding until you get to the piece of data that you need.
 Advantage :
 relatively cheap per megabyte of storage
 can store large amounts of data - over 100 Gb
 can be set up to do the back up overnight or over the week
 Disadvantage :
× serial access so can be quite slow to access data
× need a special piece of equipment to record and read the data on the tape
 Magnetic Tape
8-28

 External storage
 Provides sequential access
 Information stored in sequence
 Slower than disks which provide
direct access
 Magnetic tape streamers or tape
cartridges used by both mainframes
and microcomputers
 Characteristics
29

 No direct access, but very fast sequential access.

 Resistant to different environmental conditions.
 Easy to transport, store, cheaper than disk.
 Before it was widely used to store application data;
nowadays, it’s mostly used for backups or archives.

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 MT Characteristics-2
30

 A sequence of bits are stored on magnetic tape.

 For storage, the tape is wound on a reel.
 To access the data, the tape is unwound from one
reel to another.
 As the tape passes the head, bits of data are read
from or written onto the tape.

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31

Reel 1 Reel 2

tape

Read/write head
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 Data Blocks and Records
32

 Each data block is a sequence of contiguous

records.
 A record is the unit of data that a user’s program
deals with.
 The tape drive reads an entire block of records at
once.
 Unlike a disk, a tape starts and stops.
 When stopped, the read/write head is over an
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interblock gap.
Optical Storage
 Means of recording data as light and dark spots on
CD or DVD.
 Reading is done through a low-power laser light.
 Pits
 Dark spots
 Lands
 Lighter, non-spotted surface areas
 Optical Disks
8-34

 Compact
 Permanent storage
 Laser beams reflect off pits
 Two common types
 CD
 DVD
 Compact Disc
8-35

 Optical format
 From 650 MB to 1 GB capacity
 Rotation speeds vary
 Types
 Read only: CD-ROM
 Write once: CD-R
 Rewriteable: CD-RW
 Picture CDs and Photo CDs
 Optical storage device - CD
 CD-ROM : CD Read only memory. When you buy a CD from a store, you can read it, but you
can’t save any thing on it.
 CD-R(WORM) : CD Write once read many. You are able to save to this disk one time, so you
can storage an application or your data on it. After you have saved on it once, you can read it
many times but can’t save on it again.
 CD-RW : CD Read Write. You can save your data over and over again, like a floppy disk.
 Advantages :
 Small and portable
 Very cheap to produce
 Most computers can read CDs. If there is no CD drive, a DVD drive can usually read them
 Fairly fast to access the data - quicker than a floppy disk or magnetic tape
 Disadvantages :
× Fairly fragile, easy to snap or scratch
× Smaller storage capacity than a hard drive or DVD
 Digital Versatile Disc
8-37

 Digital Versatile Disk or Digital Video Disk (DVD)

 Similar to CDs, but can store more data
 Types
 Read only
 Write once
 Rewritable
Optical storage device - DVD
 DVD-ROM : A new type of read only compact disc that can hold a minimum of 4.7GB.
 DVD-R : can only record data once then the data becomes permanent on the disc. This disc
can’t be recorded onto second time.
 DVD-RW : The data on a DVD-RW disc can be erased and recorded over numerous times
without damaging the medium.
 DVD-RAM : can be recorded and erased repeatedly but are only compatible with devices
manufactured by the companies that support the DVD-RAM format. DVD-RAM discs are
typically housed in cartridges.
 Advantages :
 Very large storage capacity
 DVD players can read CDs
 DVDs are now mass produced so they are relatively cheap
 Sound and picture quality is excellent, making them ideal for storing films with video and
sound.
 Optical storage device –

HD DVD
HD DVD-R : the writable disc variant of HD DVD, available with a single-layer capacity of 15 GB or a dual-layer capacity of 30 GB.
 HD DVD-RW : the rewritable disc variant of HD DVD with equal storage capacity to an HD DVD-R.
 HD DVD-RAM : the proposed successor to DVD-RAM for random access on optical media using phase-change principals. It would
hold 20 gigabytes per layer instead of 15 gigabytes for HD DVD-R, due to differences in recording methods used, yielding a higher
density disc.
 Advantage :
 Cheaper than a Blu-ray
 Greater movie support than the competition
 manufacturers can produce the high definition players for much less than Blu-ray.
 a number of prominent manufacturers have pledged support to the player and format.
 Disadvantage :
× Thought it’s cheap but there’s a lot of great things that didn’t have in HD DVD.(e.g. charity, Four months worth of groceries for
the average bachelor est.)
× Region coding still unclear
× Films aren’t cheaper, even if the player is
× Xbox 360 version features no HDMI
 A Look to the Future
8-40
Blu-Ray Technology
 New standard in storage
 Blu-Ray
 New 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
 Optical storage device –
Blu-ray
 Blu-ray : medium designed to supersede the standard DDVD format. Its main uses are for storing high-definition video,
PlayStation 3 video games, and other data, with up to 25 GB per single layered, and 50 GB per dual layered disc. The disc
has the same physical dimensions as standard DVDs and CDs.
 Advantage :
 Huge storage capacity
 Mandatory Managed Copy
 Backwards compatibility
 Clear than DVD
 Can put it in the DVD player
 Disadvantage :
× Very expensive
× The cost of film
× Presently greater number of movie titles are available on DVD's
× Future uncertainty (even without HD-DVD)
× Long reading times of the discs
 Solid State device –

Flash Memory &Memory Stick
Flash Memory : Memory sticks are available from 1 Gb up to 8 Gb. They are typically small, lightweight,
removable and rewritable. They consist of a small printed circuit board which is encased in plastic or metal
casing. They usually have a removable cap which covers and protects the part of the stick which is inserted
into a USB port.
 Advantage :
 Hold more data than CD
 More reliable than floppy disk, because they have no moving part
 More compact and portable than floppy disks or CDs/DVDs.
 Being developed with fashionable looking outer casings and are almost becoming a 'fashion accessory‘.
 Disadvantage :
× Lost easily
× The metal part which is inserted into the USB port can be snapped off if they are handled roughly
× More expensive than floppy disks, CDs and DVDs