Secondary and off-line

storage
• Secondary (and off-line) storage includes
storage devices that are not directly addressable
by the CPU.
• They are non-volatile devices that allow data to
be stored as long as required by the user.
• This type of storage can store more data
than primary memory, but data access time is
considerably longer than with RAM or ROM.
• All applications, the operating system, device
drivers and general files (for example,
documents, photos and music) are stored on
secondary storage.
• The following section discusses the various
types of secondary storage that can be found
on the majority of computers.
Magnetic, optical and solid-state storage

Secondary (and off-line) storage falls into

three categories according to the technology
used:
» magnetic
» solid state
» optical
Hard Disk Drives (HDD)
• HARD DISK DRIVES (HDD) are probably still
the most common method used to store data
on a computer.
• Data is stored in a digital format on the
magnetic surfaces of the disks (or platters, as
they are frequently called).
• The hard disk drive will have a number of
platters which can spin at about 7000 times a
second.
• A number of read–write heads can access all
of the surfaces in the disk drive.
• These read–write heads can move very quickly
– typically they can move from the centre of
the disk to the edge of the disk (and back
again) 50 times a second.
• Data is stored on the surface in sectors and
tracks
• A sector on a given track will contain a fixed
number of bytes.
• Unfortunately, hard disk drives have very slow
data access when compared to, for example,
RAM.
• Many applications require the read–write
heads to constantly seek for the correct blocks
of data; this means a large number of head
movements.
• Latency is defined as the time it takes for a
specific block of data on a data track to rotate
around to the read–write head.
• Users will sometimes notice the effect of
latency when they see messages such as
‘please wait’ or, at its worst, ‘not responding’.
• When a file or data is stored on a HDD, the required
number of sectors needed to store the data will be
allocated.
• However, the sectors allocated may not be adjacent
to each other.
• Through time, the HDD will undergo numerous
deletions and editing which leads to sectors
becoming increasingly fragmented resulting in a
gradual deterioration of the HDD performance (in
other words, it takes longer and longer to access
data).
• Defragmentation software can improve on this
situation by ‘tidying up’ the disk sectors.
Fragmented Disk
• All data in a given sector on a HDD will be read
in order (that is, sequentially);however, access
to the sector itself will be by a direct read/write
head movement.
Removable hard disk drives are essentially HDDs
external to the computer that can be connected to
the computer using one of the USB ports.
In this way, they can be used as a back-up device
or another way of transferring files between
computers.
Solid-state Drives (SSD)
• Latency is an issue in HDDs as described
earlier. SOLID-STATE DRIVES (SSD) remove this
issue considerably.
• They have no moving parts and all data is
retrieved at the same rate.
• They don’t rely on magnetic properties; the
most common type of solid-state storage
devices store data by controlling the
movement of electrons within NAND chips.
• The data is stored as 0s and 1s in millions of
tiny transistors (at each junction one transistor
is called a floating gate and the other is called
a control gate) within the chip. This effectively
produces a nonvolatile rewritable memory
NAND Chip
 Floating gate and control gate
transistors
• Floating gate and control gate transistors
Floating gate and control gate transistors use
CMOS (complementary metal oxide semi-
conductor) NAND technology.
• Flash memories make use of a matrix; at each
intersection on the matrix there is a floating
gate and a control gate arranged as follows:
• A dielectric coating separates the two transistors,
which allows the floating gate transistor to retain
its charge (which is why the memory is non-
volatile).
• The floating gate transistor has a value of 1 when
it is charged and a value of 0 when it isn’t.
• To program one of these ‘intersection cells’ a
voltage is applied to the control gate and electrons
from the electron source are attracted to it.
• But due to the dielectric coating, the electrons
become trapped in the floating gate. Hence,
we have control over the bit value stored at each
intersection.
 Main benefits of using SSD rather
than HDD?
1. they are more reliable (no moving parts to go
wrong)
2. they are considerably lighter (which makes
them suitable for laptops)
3. they don’t have to ‘get up to speed’ before they
work properly
4. they have a lower power consumption
5. they run much cooler than HDDs (these last
two points again make them very suitable for
laptop computers)
6. because they have no moving parts, they are
very thin
7. data access is considerably faster than HDD.
• The main drawback of SSD is the questionable
longevity of the technology.
• solid state storage devices are conservatively
rated at only 20 GB write operations per day
over a three-year period – this is known as SSD
endurance.
• For this reason, SSD technology is not used in
servers, for example, where a huge number of
write operations take place every day.
•
 • However, the durability of these solid state
systems is being improved by a number of
manufacturers and they are rapidly becoming
more common in applications such as servers
and cloud storage devices.

Note: It is also not possible to over-write existing

data on a flash memory device; it is necessary to
first erase the old data and then write the new data
at the same location.
 Memory sticks/flash memories

• Memory sticks/flash memories (also known

as pen drives) use solid state technology.
• They usually connect to the computer through
the USB port. Their main advantage is that
they are very small, lightweight devices, which
make them very suitable as a method for
transferring files between computers.
• They can also be used as small back-up devices
for music or photo files, for example.
• Complex or expensive software, such as
financial planning software, often uses
memory sticks as a dongle.
• The dongle contains additional files that are
needed to run the software. Without this
dongle, the software won’t work properly.
• It therefore prevents illegal or unauthorized
use of the software, and also prevents copying
of the software since, without the dongle, it is
useless.
Optical media
 CD/DVD disks
• CDS and DVDS are described as OPTICAL
STORAGE DEVICES.
• Laser light is used to read data and to write
data in the surface of the disk.
• Both CDs and DVDs use a thin layer of metal
alloy (mix metals ) or light-sensitive organic
dye (a natural or synthetic substance used to
add a colour to or change the colour of
something.)to store the data.
• both systems use a single, spiral track which
runs from the centre of the disk to the edge.
• The data is stored in ‘pits’ and ‘bumps’ on the
spiral track.
• A red laser is used to read and write the data.
• CDs and DVDs can be designated R (write once
only) or RW (can be written to or read from
many times).
• DVD technology is slightly different to that
used in CDs.
• One of the main differences is the use of
DUAL-LAYERING which considerably increases
the storage capacity.
• Basically, this means that there are two
individual recording layers.
• Two layers of a standard DVD are joined
together with a transparent (polycarbonate)
spacer, and a very thin reflector is also
sandwiched between the two layers.
• Reading and writing of the second layer is
done by a red laser focusing at a fraction of a
millimeter difference compared to the first
layer.
• Standard, single layer DVDs still have a larger
storage capacity than CDs because the ‘pit’
size and track width are both smaller.
• This means that more data can be stored on
the DVD surface.
• DVDs use lasers with a wavelength of 650
nanometres; CDs use lasers with a wavelength
of 780 nanometres.
• The shorter the wavelength of the laser light,
the greater the storage capacity of the
medium.
 Blu-ray disks
BLU-RAY DISKS are another example of optical
storage media. However, they are fundamentally
different to DVDs in their construction and in the
way they carry out read–write operations.

Note: it is probably worth mentioning why

they are called Blu-ray rather than Blue-ray;
the simple reason is it was impossible to
copyright the word ‘Blue’ and hence the use
of the word ‘Blu’.
 The main differences between DVD and
Blu-ray are:
• a blue laser, rather than a red laser, is used to carry
out read and write operations; the wavelength of
blue light is only 405nanometres (compared to
650nm for red light)
• using blue laser light means that the ‘pits’ and ‘lands’
can be much smaller; consequently, Blu-ray can store
up to five times more data than normal DVD
• single-layer Blu-ray discs use a 1.2mm thick
polycarbonate disk; however, dual layer Blu-ray and
normal DVDs both use a sandwich of two 0.6mm
thick disks (i.e. 1.2mm thick)
• Blu-ray disks automatically come with a secure
encryption system that helps to prevent piracy
and copyright infringement
• the data transfer rate for a DVD is 10Mbps and
for a Blu-ray disc it is 36Mbps (this equates to
1.5hours to transfer 25GiB of data).
Since Blu-ray discs can come in single layer or
dual-layer format (unlike DVD, which is always
dual-layer), it is probably worth also comparing
the differences in capacity and interactivity of
the two technologies.
Comparison of the capacity and
interactivity of DVDs and Blu-ray discs
• A standard dual-layer DVD has a storage capacity
of 4.7GB (enough to store a 2-hour standard
definition movie)
• A single-layer Blu-ray disc has a storage capacity
of 27GB (enough to store a 2-hour high definition
movie or 13hours of standard definition movies)
• A dual-layer Blu-ray disc has a storage capacity of
50GB (enough to store 4.5hours of high definition
movies or 20hours of standard definition movies).
Blu-ray allows greater interactivity than DVDs.
For example, with Blu-ray, it is possible to:
• record high definition television programs
• skip quickly to any part of the disc
• create playlists of recorded movies and television
programmes
• edit or re-order programmes recorded on the disc
• automatically search for empty space on the disc
to avoid over-recording
• access websites and download subtitles and
other interesting features.
Finally, Table 3.11 summarises the main
differences between CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray.
All these optical storage media are used as back-
up systems (for photos, music and multimedia
files).
This also means that CDs and DVDs can be used
to transfer files between computers.
Manufacturers sometimes supply their software
(e.g. printer drivers) using CDs and DVDs. When
the software is supplied in this way, the disk is
usually in a read-only format.
The most common use of DVD and Blu-ray is the supply
of movies or games. The memory capacity of CDs isn’t
big enough to store most movies.