Storage Media (Edexcel IGCSE ICT): Revision Note
Storage media
What is storage media?
Storage media is the physical media that holds non-volatile data
Storage devices have a specific read/write mechanism built in to interact with a particular storage media
For example, magnetic tape media is read by a magnetic storage device
Examiner Tips and Tricks
Try not to get confused between storage devices and storage media.
Think of storage devices as large pieces of furniture in your home e.g. bookshelf, chest of drawers etc.
Storage media is what you store in the furniture e.g. books on the shelf or clothes in the drawers
Storage media all hold data, but the way it stores/accesses it can be very different, so just like you wouldn't store clothes on a bookshelf, you need to pair the correct storage device and storage media
Media
Hard disks
Hard disks are a magnetic storage media
Made up of platters that spin on a central spindle
A read/write head moves on an arm across the platter to read/write data
The amount of time taken to read/write data is influenced by:
How fast the platters spin (measured in revolutions per minute (RPM))
How fast the head moves across the platter
Used in personal computers, servers and backups
"Image of hard disk coming soon"
Optical media
Used with an optical storage device
All optical media is recordable (CD-R, DVD-R, BD-R)
Some optical media can be re-written (CD-RW, DVD-RW, BD-RE)
Used for multimedia (music, games & films)
CDs | DVDs | Blu-ray |
---|---|---|
up to 700 MB data | 4.7 GB single sided/single layer | 25 GB single sided 50 GB double sided |
Flash media
Flash media is a solid state storage media
More reliable than a hard disk as contains no moving parts
Very fast read/write speeds
Used in mobile devices, laptops
Magnetic tape
Old technology used primarily for recording sound
Now used to store vast amounts of data (backups)
Very slow read/write speeds
Used for whole system backups and archives
Worked Example
A USB flash memory card has 64 MiB of storage capacity.
Construct an expression to show how many bits are in 64 MiB
[3]
Answer
1 mark for sight of 8
1 mark for sight of 1024
1 mark for complete expression: 64 x 10242 x 8
…including all parts multiplied
All three marks for the result of the calculation: 536,870,912
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