JOIN NOW

Computer Science

Discuss secondary storage devices in detail.

Computer System

2 Likes

Answer

Some of the common secondary storage devices are as follows:

  1. Hard Disk — A hard-disk is a non-volatile, high capacity storage device ranging from 1 Gigabyte to several Terabytes. It consists of solid rounded disks, packed on one another, made up of a magnetic material and sealed inside a case. In a hard disk, data is stored on spinning magnetic disks called platters. Each platter is divided into tracks and sectors.

  2. Blu-ray Disc (BD) — A Blu-ray Disc is a high-capacity optical disk medium developed for recording, rewriting and playing back high-definition video. It uses blue laser that permits large amount of data to be stored at a greater density. They support higher resolutions and more advanced video and audio formats as compared to DVDs.

  3. Compact Disc (CD) — It is a thin optical disc which is commonly used to store audio and video data. The capacity of a standard 120 mm CD is 700 MB. Originally, CD-ROM drives had transfer rate of only 150 KB/s which was very low. The latest CD-ROM drives can transfer up to 10800 KB/sec.

  4. Magnetic Tapes — In this, magnetic coatings are stored as data on a thin tape. Data read/write speed is slower because of sequential access. They are convenient, secure and affordable.

  5. DVD — Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc is an optical disc storage device. It can be recorded on one or both sides. Its capacity may range from 4.7 GB to 17.08 GB.

  6. USB Pen Drive — This is a small, portable memory which can be plugged into a computer with USB Port. A pen drive's capacity is less than that of the hard disk but much higher than a floppy or CD. It is more reliable also. Pen drives have a storage capacity of 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB, up to 2TB.

  7. Memory Cards — These are data storage devices, also called Flash memory cards. They are mainly used with digital cameras, computers, mobile phones, music players, video game consoles etc. They offer high recording ability with power-free storage. Memory cards come with a storage capacity of 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB and 128GB, up to 1.5TB.

Answered By

1 Like

Related Questions