EE241 Lecture 3 Storage Unit by Mr. R.

Minala Electrical & Comm Engineering Department PNGUNITECH

12/03/2012

EE241 Introduction to Computing

Chapter 3: Storage Unit

3.0 Objectives Upon completing this lecture, you should be able to: Discuss a significant role of a hard disk Discuss the significance of having floppy disk drives and zip disks. Discuss the significance of having flash drives Discuss the advantage and disadvantage of each storage unit.
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3.1 Overview

In this lecture, we will begin our study on hard drives (disks), discuss its relation to overall performance, storage capacity, software support and reliability. Well then discuss traditional removable storage unitthe floppy disk drive and zip drives. Likewise other removable mediums such as CD-R, CD RW, DVDs, etc. will be discussed later. The lecture closes with the discussion on USB flash drives and some tips for purchasing them.
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EE241 Lecture 3 Storage Unit by Mr. R. Minala Electrical & Comm Engineering Department PNGUNITECH

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3.2 Hard Disk (HDD)

hard disk drive- (often shortened as hard disk, hard drive, or HDD) is a non-volatile storage device that stores digitally encoded data on rapidly rotating rigid (i.e. hard) platters with magnetic surfaces. Strictly speaking, "drive" refers to the motorized mechanical aspect that is distinct from its medium, such as a tape drive and its tape, or a floppy disk drive and its floppy disk. HDD is the data center of the PC where all the programs and data are stored between occasions that the user uses the computer. HDD differs from other storage medias in 3-ways:
1. 2. 3.

Size: usually larger Speed: usually faster Permanence: usually fixed in the PC and not removable. However, due to emerging technology, todays hard disk are removable which are connected via USB port.

HDD first introduced in 1956 as data storage for IBM Accounting Computer.

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(3.2 Hard Disk Contd.)

Construction & Principle of Operation of a HDD

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 that holds one or more flat circular disks called platters, onto which the data are recorded. The platters are made from a non-magnetic material, usually aluminum alloy or glass, and are coated with a thin layer of magnetic material, typically 1020 nm in thickness 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 the heads on an arc (roughly radially) across the platters as they spin, allowing each head to access almost the entire surface of the platter as it spins. The arm is moved using a voice coil actuator or in some older designs a stepper motor. The magnetic surface of each platter is conceptually divided into many small sub-micrometer-sized magnetic regions-called clusters (and segments) each of which is used to encode a single binary unit of information.

Lets study the simulation of hard disk to see how it works.

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EE241 Lecture 3 Storage Unit by Mr. R. Minala Electrical & Comm Engineering Department PNGUNITECH

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(3.2 Hard Disk Contd.)

Storage Capacities of HDDs:

Traditionally 10MB 10 GB, 20 GB, 40GB, 60GB, 80GB, 120GB, 160GB, 180GB, 200GB,500GB,1TB, & as of February 2010, the highest capacity consumer HDDs are 2TB Internal HDDs-traditionally being used and connected inside the motherboard of a PC. External HDDs-connected externally to PC through USB port and is primarily used for data backup. Flash Drives having sizes up to more than 4GB are more or less removable HDDs

Different Types of HDDs

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3.3 Floppy Drives

Floppy Drives-often called "floppy disk" (or diskette) is a form of magnetic data storage; thin, flexible, soft, flat piece of Mylar plastic, packaged in a 3.5 inch plastic case. The reason it was called a floppy is because obsolete (8 and 5.25 inch formats) types would "flop" as you waved them. Floppy disks were invented by IBM and were a popular form of data storage from the 1970's to 1990's. The key to their widespread use was their inexpensive cost and ease of portability. Information could be transferred to a floppy disk, stored, disk removed, then inserted into another system to then be accessed. Although there are variety of different types of floppy disks being produced by different manufacturers, the most widely used ones are 3.5 & 5.25 Floppy disks having a capacity of approximately 1.4MB. Today Floppy Drives have been phased out by the introduction of CDs, CD-ROM, and flash drives.

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EE241 Lecture 3 Storage Unit by Mr. R. Minala Electrical & Comm Engineering Department PNGUNITECH

12/03/2012

3.4 Zip Disks

A zip drive is a secondary storage device that uses zip disks. Zip disks are cartridges similar to floppy disks but capable of storing 70-500 times more memory. Zip disks are disks with a special high quality magnetic coating that have a capacity of 100, 250, or 750 MB. Zip drives are almost obsolete amongst today's students as CDs or memory sticks are much more convenient since they can be read by almost all computers (zip disks need special zip drives).

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3.5 CD ROM Drives

CD-ROM-Short for Compact Disc-Read-Only Memory, a type of optical disk capable of storing large amounts of data -- up to 1GB, although the most common size is 650MB (megabytes). A single CD-ROM has the storage capacity of 700 floppy disks, enough memory to store about 300,000 text pages. CD-ROM use compact disks, in fact the same physical disk format as the one used for music. Special formatting is used to allow these disks to hold data. CD-ROMs are now the method of choice for the distribution of software and data due to their combination of high capacity, cheap & easy manufacturing. CD-ROM drives play a significant roles in the following aspect of a computer sys:

Software Support: Prime reason for having a CD-ROM drive is to make installation of software very easy since most software are loaded into the CDs. Performance: performance level of the CD-Drive is important since most software use CD ROM drive for software installation, creating backups, playing movies, etc. performance of the CD-ROM drive depends on how often we use it.

CD-ROM offers information to be read from them but not write to them. For writing one would need a CD-Writer or Burner. CD-ROMs are used for distribution of application programs, sys programs like OS, games, multimedia information like videos, music and large graphics files.
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EE241 Lecture 3 Storage Unit by Mr. R. Minala Electrical & Comm Engineering Department PNGUNITECH

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(3.5 CD-ROM Contd.)

Different types of CDs

CD-RW (for compact disc, rewriteable) is a compact disc (CD) format that allows repeated recording on a disc. The CD-RW format was introduced by Hewlett-Packard, Mitsubishi, Philips, Ricoh, and Sony, in a 1997 CD-R (Compact Disk Recordable) is a disk that allows recording only ones and reading only. It cant be used for rewriting as in CD-RW. CD-i (Compact Disc - interactive) is the multimedia CD format specified in 1986 (in the Green Book). CD-i was specified as an entire system, comprising not just a disc and data format, but a hardware and software system, a variety of special compression methods for audio and visual data, and a method of interleaving audio, video, and text data. Developed as a user-friendly alternative to a PC, CD-I players are easier to use, and have TV video output as well. Full screen motion video capabilities were added to the original specification later. A CD-i player is a stand-alone system that includes a CPU, memory, and an integrated operating system. It can be connected to a TV set for displaying pictures and sound, or to a stereo system.

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3.6 DVDs

DVDs-also know as Digital Versatile Disk or Digital Video Disk, is an optical disk storage media format, and was invented and developed by Sony, & Philips in 1995. DVDs main uses are video & data storage and are of the same dimensions as compact disks (CDs), but store more than six times as much data. DVD Drives of a computer system is used to write the data on to the DVD disk or read the data from the DVDs.

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EE241 Lecture 3 Storage Unit by Mr. R. Minala Electrical & Comm Engineering Department PNGUNITECH

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(3.6 DVDs Contd.)

Different Types of DVDs

DVD-ROM-has data that can only be read & not written. DVD-R & DVD+R-can record data only once and then function as a DVD-ROM. DVD (rewritable), DVD-RW & DVD+RW & DVD-RAM (Random Access Memory) can all record and erase data multiple times. Check the Capacity of the DVD disks

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(3.6 DVD contd.)

Improvement and Succession of DVDs

Blu-ray Disks-uses a blue violet laser. The laser enables many functions of a video such as recording, rewriting and playback. Much more data can be stored on a Blu-Ray disc than on a regular DVD, over five times the amount of data that a single layer DVD. It also has a duel layer version. Blu-Ray is a new optical disc standard based on the use of a blue laser rather than the red laser of DVD players.

Designed by Sony, Samsung & Panasonic in 2006 as successor to DVD. A Dual Layer Blu-ray Disk can store 50-100GB.

HVD-Holographic Versatile Disk-is an optical disk technology that may one day hold up to 3.9 terabytes (TB) of information. The current max. capacity is 500GB. It employs a technique known as collinear holography. 5D DVD-being developed in Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia and it uses a multi-laser system to encode and read data on multiple layers. Disk Capacities are estimated at up to 10 TB and the technology could be commercially ready within 10 years.

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EE241 Lecture 3 Storage Unit by Mr. R. Minala Electrical & Comm Engineering Department PNGUNITECH

12/03/2012

3.7 Flash Drives

Flash Drives-often called USB flash-drive, pen drives, jump drives, pocket drives and thumb drives. Regardless of whatever name being used, they are all solid state memory devices that are versatile, compact, removable, and easy to use; they all serve only one purpose, & that is, they are used for storing data temporarily as backup and for transferring files easily. What to look for in a flash drive:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Form Factor: Look for one that fits your style. Capacity: Depends on how much data you what to store. Larger the capacity can store more data, movies, song, etc. Compatibility: Find out whether your computer has a USB 1.1 or USB 2.0 port & find a compatible drive. Data Protection: Find out how the drive protect your digital data. Many have right protect to prevent accidental eraser. Software: Look to see if software (driver) is included with the drive.

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