Secondary storage

Secondary storage

1. Types of secondary storage

   • Magnetic storage
     • Magnetic storage stores the data in the form of tiny magnetised dots
     • One type of magnetic storage are Hard drives. Hard drives have a very large storage capacity and use RAM. It is also very fast.
     • There is also a fixed hard drive and a portable hard drive. The fixed hard drive is built into the computer and is known as fixed whereas the portable hard drive is placed into a small case that can only be accessed by using using a USB.
   • Solid state
     • Solid state literally means 'no moving parts' which means no tape or spinning disks or laser beams
     • Solid state uses a special type of memory called flash memory. this is a type of ROM and is non-volatile
     • Types of solid state memory could include memory sticks, memory cards or even smart cards.
   • Optical
     • This is a storage method that can be read by a laser. Data is written onto storage such as CDs and DVDs.

2. Secondary storage is used when there isn't enough space on the main storage or a file is too big. Most secondary is non-volatile which means that data will not get lost even if the computer is switched off.

3. They are also used to store different types of files such as the operating system.