Primary and Secondary Storage

Primary and Secondary Storage

1. RAM

   • 'Random Access Memory'
   • stores programs and data
   • Computer can easily access the data
   • Volatile memory
   • Larger in memory capacity

2. ROM

   • 'Read-only Memory'
   • contains the boot-up program
   • Non-volatile memory
   • data is not lost once computer is turned off

3. Optical Storage

   • Disks are small and light making them very portable
   • Disks are cheap to manufacture
   • Fairly durable, they are safe to store data on
   • the data cannot be over written
   • CD, DVD and Blu-ray
   • Small capacity
   • required to read-write in some cases

4. Magnetic Storage

   • Large storage capacity
   • Fast access to read and write data
   • Fairly inexpensive to manufacture
   • hard drive disks
   • Data can be lost
   • not very robust

5. Solid-state storage

   • Faster boot-up with no warm up needed
   • can be made to be very compact in size
   • Large storage capacity
   • More robust than magnetic due to having no moving parts
   • Solid-state drives, SD cards and USB memory sticks
   • expensive to manufacture
   • limited amount of times data can be read from