Secondary Storage

Seite 1

Secondary Storage

Magnetic storage is…

Magnetic storage is

high-capacity, reliable storage. A HDD (magnetic hard drive) is made up of a

stack of magnetised metal disks spinning at a rate between 5400 and 15000 rpm.

Data is stored magnetically in small sectors within circular tracks. Read/write

heads on a moving arm are used to access sectors on the disks. Portable HDDs

are popular for backing up and transporting large amounts of data. Despite

their moving parts, HDDs are generally very long lasting and reliable, although

they could be damaged by large impacts like being dropped.

Solid state storage is…

Solid state storage

is fast and reliable secondary storage. They have no moving parts. Most types

of solid state storage use a type of flash memory. SSDs are used for the same

purpose as HDDs: internal storage. SSDs are significantly faster, with quicker

times for booting up and opening programs and files. Portable SSDs can be used

to back up and transport data.

Using the facts and

differences between magnetic and solid state, in the table, on the same linked

page describe the difference between them.

Try to put your

answers in a logical order, costs for example, so you can use nice connectives

to join the differences together.

Magnetic storage

is cheaper, whereas solid state storage is more expensive, meaning magnetic

storage is more widely used for larger amounts of storage space.

Magnetic storage

drives generally have higher capacities than solid state storage, so more data

can be stored on a single drive, which would appeal to people that want data

all on the same drive.

HDDs have a longer

read/write life than SSDs – SSDs can only be written a certain number of times

before they start to deteriorate.

SSDs are much

faster than HDDs, appealing to consumers that want to work more efficiently;

everything loads quicker.

As SSDs have no

moving parts, because data is retrieved by flash memory, they’re more

shock-proof than HDDs, which have moving arms. This makes it more robust.

HDDs make some

noise, SSDs are silent.

SSDs don’t need

defragmenting, whereas HDDs do.