Secondary Storage

Question 1

What is secondary storage used for?

Answer 1

To retain a copy of programs and data that need to be kept long term

Question 2

What is a secondary storage device?

Answer 2

The physical hardware that carries out the storage action

Question 3

Give 2 examples of secondary storage devices

Answer 3

Hard Disk

Solid State Drive (SSD)

Question 4

What is storage media?

Answer 4

The physical object used to actually store the data

Question 5

Give examples of a storage media

Answer 5

DVD

Magnetic Tape Recorder

Question 6

Give examples of magnetic storage

Answer 6

Hard Disk

Magnetic Tape Cartridge

Question 7

What are 5 advantages of magnetic storage?

• Capacity
• Cost
• Speed of data access
• Access to data
• Time can hold data for

Answer 7

Huge capacity
Low cost per GB
High speed data access (Hard Disk)
Random access to data (Hard Disk)
Magnetic Tape can hold it's data for 30 years

Question 8

What are 5 disadvantages of magnetic storage?

• Portability
• Toughness
• Near Magnetic Fields
• Data access speed
• Data read/write

Answer 8

Not very portable
Hard disk has mechanical moving parts, so less rugged
Data can be lost near strong magnetic fields
Magnetic tape uses serial data access and so is very slow
Data read/write is not as fast as flash technology

Question 9

Give some examples of optical storage

Answer 9

CD
DVD
Blu-Rays

Question 10

How does optical storage work?

Answer 10

A laser beam burns tiny dark pits on to the surface of the optical disk. If a pit is present, this can represent a data bit being ‘1’ and if no pit is present, this can represent a data bit being ‘0’

Question 11

What are 4 advantages of optical storage?

• Cost
• Portability
• Size
• Near magnetic field

Answer 11

Cheap if less than 10GB needs to be stored per media item
Very portable compared to Hard Disk
Normally sized 5GB-50GB
Immune to magnetic fields

Question 12

What are 5 disadvantages of optical storage?

• Cost
• Portability
• Read/write speed
• Toughness
• Writing over data

Answer 12

Not cheap if TBs needs to be installed
Not as portable as flash media
Slow to write (burn) to and much slower than hard disk to access
Easily scratched
Cannot write over stored data

Question 13

Give some examples of SSD

Answer 13

USB Memory Stick
SDHC Memory Cards
Solid State Drives

Question 14

Give 5 advantages of SSD

• Portability
• Capacity
• Toughness
• Speed
• Noise

Answer 14

Very portable
Large Capacity
Very tough and rugged
Faster than a hard disk
Are silent, unlike Hard Disks

Question 15

Give 2 disadvantages of SSD

• Cost
• Toughness

Answer 15

Expensive

Less durable than a hard disk as it has a limited number of erase \ write cycles

Question 16

What is the general capacity of a CD?

Answer 16

700MB

Question 17

What is the general capacity of a Single Layer DVD?

Answer 17

4.7GB

Question 18

What is the general capacity of a Double Layer DVD?

Answer 18

8.5GB

Question 19

What is the general capacity of a SD Memory Card?

Answer 19

64GB+

Question 20

What is the general capacity of a USB Memory Stick?

Answer 20

512MB to 32 GB

Question 21

What is the general capacity of a Hard Disk?

Answer 21

300GB-6TB

Question 22

What is the general capacity of a SSD?

Answer 22

300GB-1TB

Question 23

What is the general capacity of a Magnetic Tape

Answer 23

Up to 185GB

Question 24

What are the 6 things to consider when choosing what storage to use?

Answer 24

Capacity
Speed
Portability 
Durability
Reliability
Cost