Primary and Secondary Storage

Primary and Secondary Storage

1. Primary Storage refers to random access memory (RAM)

2. Secondary storage refers to the computers internal hard drive

3. Secondary is not under the direct control of the CPU an example of this would be the hard drive

4. Storage that is under the direct control of the CPU is primary storage

5. A computer system needs secondary storage to store data long-term

6. Secondary storage is needed to store the contents of RAM for when they are needed again at a later date

7. There are three types of secondary storage : optical,magnetic and solid state

8. An advanatge of optical storage would be that the disks are small and light making them very portable

9. A disadvantage of Optical storage is that the storage capacity of disks is relatively small compared to other storage devices

10. An advantage of Solid-state storage would be that it has a fast boot-up as they do not need to 'warm up' due to having no moving parts

11. A disadvantage of solid state storage is that they are expensive to manufacture

12. An advantage of magnetic storage is that they have a large storage capacity

13. A disadvantage of magnetic storage is that data can be lost or altered by magnetic filed or mechanical problems

14. Optical storage uses a lens and a light beam to read and write data onto a disk

15. Magnetic storage devices use magnets to record data on rotating metal plates

16. Solid-state storage uses flash memories to store data

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