STORAGE

DEVICES
• There are many kinds of drives
but when someone talks about
a drive they usually mean a
hard disk drive.
• Most computers these days also
come with a CD-ROM drive
(that can be a player only or a
player/recorder) or a DVD -ROM
drive (again, either just a
player or both a player and
recorder).
• Many computers also have a
floppy disk drive.
• All the above disks are nonvolatile
storage.
• In other words whatever you store
on the disk remains there, even
after you shut off the PC.
• Disk drives are encased in metal
boxes to keep them from being
damaged.
• Hard disks are fixed disks whereas
you can remove one disk and
insert another in floppy drives and
CD drives.
• Hard drives and CD drives uses
• All the above drives need a data
connector and a power connector.
• A disk drive rotates the disk very
fast and has one or more heads
that read and write data.
• There are different types of disk
drives for different types of disks.
• For example, a hard disk drive (HDD)
reads and writes hard disks, and a
floppy drive (FDD) accesses floppy
disks.
• A magnetic disk drive reads
magnetic disks, and an optical
drive reads optical disks.
 Hard Disk
• A hard disk drive (HDD), commonly
referred to as a hard drive, hard
disk or fixed disk drive, is a non-
volatile storage device which
stores digitally encoded data on
rapidly rotating platters with
magnetic surfaces.
• "drive" refers to a device distinct
from its medium, such as a tape
drive and its tape, or a floppy disk
drive and its floppy disk.
• Early HDDs had removable media;
however, an HDD today is typically
Hard Disk Platters and
actuator arms
• HDDs record data by
magnetizing ferromagnetic
material directionally, to
represent either a 0 or a 1
binary digit.
• They read the data back by
detecting the magnetization of
the material.
• A typical HDD design consists of
a spindle which holds one or
more flat circular disks called
platters, onto which the data is
recorded.
•
• The platters are spun at very high
speeds.
• Information is written to a platter as it
rotates past devices called read-and-
write heads that operate very close
(tens of nanometers in new drives)
over the magnetic surface.
• The read-and-write head is used to
detect and modify the magnetization
of the material immediately under it.
• There is one head for each magnetic
platter surface on the spindle,
mounted on a common arm.
• An actuator arm (or access arm) moves
Various components of a
Hard Disk
IDE Cable
A ty p ica l
d e sk to p H D D ,
m ig h t sto re
b e tw e e n 120
and 300 G B of
d a ta , ro ta te a t
7 ,2 0 0
re v o lu tio n s
per m in u te
( RPM ) and
h a v e a m e d ia
tra n sfe r ra te
• Hard disk drives are accessed over
one of a number of bus types,
including parallel ATA (PATA, also
called IDE or EIDE), Serial ATA
(SATA), SCSI, Serial Attached SCSI
(SAS).
• Following is the main difference
between various connectors
– IDE/ATA
• 40-conductor connection (ATA)
• 80-conductor connection (UDMA)
• Max cable length 80” (0.46 mtrs)
• Max data transfer rate – 133Mbps
• Data transfer methods – PIO, DMA &
ATAPI
–SATA
• Serial connection
• Max data transfer rate – 3 to
150 Mbps
• Modular type connection


–SCSI
• 50-conductor connection
• Max devices supported – up
to 16
• Max data transfer rates – 5 to
160 Mbps
 CD-ROM
• CD-ROM (an abbreviation of
"Compact Disc read-only memory")
is a Compact Disc that contains
data accessible by a computer.
• While the Compact Disc format was
originally designed for music
storage and playback, the format
was later adapted to hold any form
of binary data.
• CD-ROMs are popularly used to
distribute computer software,
including games and multimedia
 CD-ROM
• Some CDs hold both computer
data and audio with the latter
capable of being played on a
CD player, whilst data (such as
software or digital video) is
only usable on a computer
(such as PC CD-ROMs).
• A CD has a single spiral track of
data, circling from the inside of
the disc to the outside.
 CD
• Discs are made from a 1.2 mm
thick disc of polycarbonate
plastic, with a thin layer of
aluminum to make a reflective
surface.


• The most common size of CD-

ROM disc is 120 mm in
diameter, though the smaller
Mini CD standard with an
Spiral tracks in a CD
• Data is stored on the disc as a series
of microscopic indentations ("pits",
with the gaps between them
referred to as "lands").
• A laser is shone onto the reflective
surface of the disc to read the
pattern of pits and lands.
• Because the depth of the pits is
approximately one-quarter to one-
sixth of the wavelength of the laser
light used to read the disc, the
reflected beam's phase is shifted in
relation to the incoming beam,
causing destructive interference
 DVD
• Digital Versatile Disk has same size as a CD
but stores seven times CD capacity on a
single side.
• DVDs can also be double-sided or dual layer.
• Today most DVDs are used to display full-
length commercial motion pictures, plus
additional material such as outtakes,
director's notes, movie trailers, etc.
• DVD, introduced in 1996, was originally
known as Digital Video Disc but soon
became known as Digital Versatile Disc.
• It is the next generation of optical disc
storage technology, which shares the
same overall dimensions of a CD, but have
significantly higher capacities - holding
from 4 to 28 times as much data.
• Single sided DVDs can store 4.7GB for
 Blu-ray Disc
• Blu-ray Disc (also known as Blu-ray or BD) is
an optical disc storage medium.
• Its main uses are high-definition video and
data storage.
• The disc has the same physical dimensions
as standard DVDs and CDs.
• The name Blu-ray Disc is derived from the
blue laser (violet-colored) used to read
and write this type of disc.
• Because of the beam's shorter wavelength
(405 nano meters), substantially more
data can be stored on a Blu-ray Disc than
on the DVD format, which uses a red
(650 nm) laser.
• A two-layer Blu-ray Disc can store 50
• During the format war over high-
definition optical discs, Blu-ray Disc
competed with the HD DVD format.
• On February 19, 2008, Toshiba—the
main company supporting HD DVD—
announced that it would no longer
develop, manufacture, and market HD
DVD players and recorders, leading
almost all other HD DVD companies to
follow suit, effectively ending the
format war.
• Blu-ray Disc was developed by the Blu-
ray Disc Association, a group
representing makers of consumer
electronics, computer hardware, and
motion pictures.
• As of October 29, 2008, more than
1010 Blu-ray Disc titles have been
 Flash Memory
• Flash memory is an evolving technology.
• The first generation of chips required that your
PC or other device using the chips handle all
the minute of the erase and write operations.
• Current generation chips have their own
onboard logic to automate these operations,
making Flash ROM act more like ordinary
memory.
• The logic controls the timing of all the pulses
used to erase and write to the chip, ensures
that the proper voltages reach the memory
cells, and even verifies that each write
operation was carried out successfully. Fig.
shows a type of Flash memory card.
• On the other hand, the convenience of using
Flash ROM has led many developers to create
disk emulators from it.
• For the most effective operation and longest
USB Flash drives
F o r sy ste m d e sig n e rs ,
th e e le ctrica l re -
p ro g ra m m a b ility of
F la sh R O M m a k e s it
e a sy to u se .
U n fo rtu n a te ly , F la sh
R O M is h a n d ica p p e d b y
th e sa m e lim ita tio n a s
E E P R O M —its life is
fin ite ( a lth o u g h lo n g e r
th a n o rd in a ry E E P R O M )
a n d it m u st b e e ra se d
a n d re p ro g ra m m e d a s
one o r m o re b lo ck s
in ste a d o f in d iv id u a l
• USB flash drives are typically
removable and rewritable,
much shorter than a floppy
disk (1 to 4 inches or 2.5 to
10 cm), and weigh less than
2 ounces (56 g).
• Storage capacities typically
range from 64 MB to 64 GB
with steady improvements
in size and price per
gigabyte.
• Some allow 1 million write or
• A flash drive consists
of a small printed
circuit board
protected inside a
plastic, metal, or
rubberized case,
robust enough for
carrying with no
additional
protection — in a
pocket or on a key
chain, for example.
The USB connector
is protected by a
removable cap or
by retracting into
the body of the
drive, although it is
not liable to be