Secondary Storage Devices

Secondary Storage Devices

Magnetic Devices Optical Devices

Sequential Access Direct Access CD-ROM

Magnetic Tape Magnetic Disk

Floppy Disk Hard Disk

 Secondary Storage Devices
Magnetic Disk –

- Random Accessed

- Stored On line

- Faster Access

Tracks – For data recording the surface of a disk is divided into a number
of invisible concentric circles called as tracks.

Sectors – Each track is further subdivided into sectors, a sector is the

smallest unit of data access from a disk.
 Floppy Disk

• Floppy disks are so called

because they are made
of flexible plastic plates,
which can bend, not hard
plates.
• They are also known as
floppies or diskettes.
• They were introduced by
IBM in 1972, and are now
being produced in various
sizes and capacities by
many manufacturers.
 Tracks and Sectors

The disk is divided into

tracks (brown) and
sectors (yellow).
 Floppy Disk Drive

• A floppy-disk drive is a device, which is used to

read/write data from/to floppy disks.
• The drive has a spindle, which rotates the disk, and the
read/write heads, which can move in and out to position
the read/write heads on any track of the disk surface.
• It is of the interchangeable magnetic disk type. That is it
allows loading and unloading of magnetic disks, as and
when they are needed, for reading/writing data on them.
 3½ -inch floppy disk
All 3½ floppy disks are of double-sided type, and record
data on both the disk surfaces. However they come in
three different capacities –
• Double density 3½ inch diskettes have 40 tracks, 18
sectors/track, and 512 bytes/sector – total storage
capacity 720 KB (approximately).
• The high density 3½ inch diskettes have 80 tracks, 18
sectors/track, and 512 bytes/sector – total storage
capacity 1.4 MB (approximately).
• The very high density 3½ inch diskettes have 80 tracks,
36 sectors/track, and 512 bytes/sector – total storage
capacity 2.88 MB(approximately).
 Floppy Disk

Advantages – 1. Low Cost

2. Easy to Carry away.

Disadvantages – 1. Less durability

2. Low capacity for

storage
 Hard disk basics

• Hard disks were invented in the 1950s.

• They started as large disks up to 20 inches in diameter
holding just a few megabytes.
• They were originally called "fixed disks" or "Winchesters"
(a code name used for a popular IBM product).
• They later became known as "hard disks" to distinguish
them from "floppy disks."
• Hard disks have a hard platter that holds the magnetic
medium, as opposed to the flexible plastic film found in
tapes and floppies.
 Capacity and Performance

• Capacity of the drive - the number of bytes it can hold.-

10 and 40 gigabytes.
• Data rate - The data rate is the number of bytes per
second that the drive can deliver to the CPU. Rates
between 5 and 40 megabytes per second are common.
Access time on Disk
• Seek time : Time to position the head on a specific
track.
• Latency time : The time required by a sector to
reach below the read/write head.
• Disk Access time : Is considered to be sum of seek
time and latency time.
 Storing the data
• Data is stored on the
surface of a platter in
sectors and tracks.
Tracks are concentric
circles, and sectors are
pie-shaped wedges on a
track.
• A typical track is shown in
yellow; a typical sector is
shown in blue.
• A sector contains a fixed
number of bytes -- for
example, 256 or 512.
 Hard-disk drive

• It is a sealed aluminum
box with controller
electronics attached to
one side
 Electronics Board
• The electronics control
the read/write mechanism
and the motor that spins
the platters.
• The electronics also
assemble the magnetic
domains on the drive into
bytes (reading) and turn
bytes into magnetic
domains (writing).
 Platters & Arm
Removing the cover from
the drive reveals an
extremely simple but very
precise interior

• The platters - These

typically spin at 3,600 or
7,200 rpm when the drive is
operating.

• The arm - This holds the

read/write heads and is
controlled by the
mechanism in the upper-left
corner.
 Multiple Platters

• In order to increase the

amount of information the
drive can store, most
hard disks have multiple
platters. This drive has
three platters and six
read/write heads:
 Hard Disk

Advantages – Disadvantages -

1. More Capacity 1. Difficult to carry away

2. More Durable 2. Costly

3. Faster Access
 Magnetic: Zip
– In this type, a single disk
platter is encased in a
plastic cartridge.
– Commonly used zip disk is
of 3½ inch size, having
storage capacity of 100
MB, depending upon the
formatting style used by a
particular computer
system.
– Its disk drive is called a zip
drive.
• Storage Capacity- up to
750 MB at the moment.
 Magnetic: Cartridges
• Each Jaz cartridge is basically
a hard disk, with several
platters, contained in a hard,
plastic case.
• The cartridge contains neither
the heads nor the motor for
spinning the disk; both of
these items are in the drive
unit.
• The current Jaz drive uses 2-
GB cartridges, but also
accepts the 1-GB cartridge
used by the original Jaz.
 Magnetic: Portable Drives
• Completely external, portable
hard drives are quickly
becoming popular, due in a
great part to USB technology.
• These units, like the ones
inside a typical PC, have the
drive mechanism and the
media all in one sealed case.
• The drive connects to the PC
via USB cable and, after the
driver software is installed the
first time, is automatically listed
by Windows as an available
drive.
• This 20-GB Pockey Drive fits
in the palm of your hand.
 Magnetic Tape
 Magnetic tapes are mounted on reels or a cartridge
or a cassette of tape to store large volumes or
backup data.
 The tape drive is termed as sequential access drive.
 The tapes are one of the earliest storage devices.

 They are low cost, low speed, portable and are still widely used
because of their low cost.
 Used for Backup Storage

 Slower Access
 Solid-state Storage

 A very popular type of removable storage for small

devices, such as digital cameras and PDAs, is Flash
memory.

 Flash memory is a type of solid-state technology, which

basically means that there are no moving parts

 Flash memory is an erasable memory chip.

 Solid-state Storage Devices
• Flash-memory storage
devices such as
CompactFlash or
SmartMedia cards are
today's most common form
of electronic nonvolatile
memory.
• This SmartMedia card
holds 64 MB.
 Solid-state Storage Devices

This CompactFlash
card holds 128 MB!
 Optical Media
Optical disk drive uses laser beams to
read and write bits of information on the
disk surface.
– Not as fast as magnetic hard disks
– Massive storage capacity and reliability
– CD-ROM
• One spiral track
 Optical Devices
• CD-ROM drives are optical drives that read CD-ROMs.

• CD-R are WORM media (write-once, read many).

• CD-RW can read CD-ROMs and write, erase and rewrite

data onto CD-R & CD-RW disks.

• DVD (digital versatile disks) store & distribute all kinds of

data. They hold between 3.8 and 17 gigabytes of
information.
 Mass Storage Devices
Mass storage devices are storage systems, which have
very high storage capacity.

 Disk Array (RAID)

 Automated Tape Library
 CD-ROM Jukebox