Storage Devices &

classification of
computers

Designed by Prof. Anosha Khan 1/30/2020

Storage Devices
 Storage devices hold data, even when the computer is turned off.
 The physical material that actually holds data is called a storage
medium. The surface of a floppy disk is a storage medium.
 The hardware that writes data to or reads data from a storage
medium is called a storage device. A floppy disk drive is a storage
device.
 The two primary storage technologies are magnetic and optical.
 Secondary storage is necessary because memory, or primary
storage, loses its data when a computer is turned off whereas
secondary storage does not.
 Therefore, it is commonly known as non-volatile storage. The data
on it stays there until it is deleted or overwritten by the user.
Designed by Prof. Anosha Khan 1/30/2020
Hard disks
 Hard Disk are usually found inside computers to store programs and data
 They are constructed from several key components:
 Platter - Metallic disks where One or both sides of the platter are magnetized,
allowing data to be stored.
 The platter spins thousands of times a second around the spindle and spins
continuously when in operation.
 There may be several platters, with data stored across them.
 The disk is divided into tracks and sectors with data represented by
magnetizing spots on the disk.
 Head - The head reads magnetic data from the platter. For a drive with
several platters there may be two heads per platter allowing data to be read
from top and bottom of each
 Actuator Arm - used to move the read heads in and out of the disk, so that
data can be read and written to particular locations and you can access data
in a Random fashion.
Designed by Prof. Anosha Khan 1/30/2020
 Power connector - provides electricity to spin the platters, move the read
head and run the electronics
 IDE connector -
allows for data transfer
from and to the platters
 Jumper block -
used to get the disk working
in specific ways such as RAID
How a hard disk works?
1. The platters spin around the spindle
2. data is requested to be read from a particular area of a platter
3. the actuator arm moves the read head to that track
4. Once the data sector that is required has spun around and under the read head,
data is read
Designed by Prof. Anosha Khan 1/30/2020

5. Read data is sent from the IDE connector to main memory

 Floppy Disk Drive
 FD is a computer disk drive that enables a user to save data to removable
diskettes.
 Although 8" disk drives were first made available in 1971, the first real disk
drives used were the 5 1/4" floppy disk drives, which were later replaced
with the 3 1/2" floppy disk drives.
 A 5 1/4" floppy disk was capable of storing between 360 KB and 1.2 MB of
data, and the 3 1/2" floppy disk was capable of storing between 360 KB and
1.44 MB of data.
 Magnetic Tape
 Increasingly obsolete, the tape has been a medium to deliver software and
back up data since the early days of computing.
 Nowadays they are used mostly for corporate backing up and archiving of
data.
 Tapes are sequential data stores
 There is no random access like with a hard disk!
 Tapes
Designed canKhan
by Prof. Anosha be
several terabytes in size and reading and writing
1/30/2020 can be very

fast as long as you read or write continuous sections of the tape at once.
Optical storage devices
 Optical storage devices save data as patterns of dots
that can be read using light.
 A laser beam is the usual light source.
 The data on the storage medium is read by bouncing
the laser beam off the surface of the medium. If the
beam hits a dot it is reflected back differently to
how it would be if there were no dot. This difference
can be detected, so the data can be read.
 Dots can be created using the laser beam (for media
that is writable such as CD-Rs). The beam is used in
a high-power mode to actually mark the surface of
the medium, making a dot. This process is known as
‘burning’ data onto a disc.
Designed by Prof. Anosha Khan 1/30/2020
 CD-ROM
 Compact Disc - Read-Only Memory (CD-ROM) discs can hold around800MB of
data.
 The data cannot be altered (non-volatile), so cannot be accidently deleted.
 CD-ROMs are random-access devices.
 CD-ROMs are used to distribute all sorts of data: software , music,
electronic books
 DVD-ROM
 Digital Versatile Disc or digital video disc - Read-Only Memory (DVD-ROM) discs
can hold around 4.7GB of data (a dual-layer DVD can hold twice that).
 DVD-ROMs are random-access devices.
 DVD-ROMs are used in the same way as CD-ROMs but, since they can hold more
data, they are also used to store high-quality video.
 CD-R and DVD-R
 CD-Recordable (CD-R) and DVD-recordable (DVD-R) discs can have data
burnt onto them, but not erased. You can keep adding data until the disc is
full, but you cannot remove any data or re-use a full disc.
 CD-RW and DVD-RW
 CD-Re Writable (CD-RW) and DVD-Re Writable (DVD-RW) discs, unlike CD-Rs and
DVD-Rs, can have data burnt onto them and also erased 1/30/2020
Designed by Prof. Anosha Khan
so that the discs can
be re-used.
Solid-State Storage Devices
 The term ‘solid-state’ essentially means ‘no moving
parts’.
 Solid-state storage devices are based on electronic
circuits with no moving parts (no reels of tape, no
spinning discs, no laser beams, etc.)
 Solid-state storage devices store data using a special
type of memory called flash memory
 USB Flash drive
 Memory sticks are non-volatile, random-access storage
devices
 Small, lightweight USB memory sticks, Portable, available for
many Gigabytes.
Designed by Prof. Anosha Khan 1/30/2020
Classification of computers
 Computers are classified according to size, speed and
memory
 Super computers
 Desktop computers
 Workstation
 Server
 Mainframe computers

Designed by Prof. Anosha Khan 1/30/2020

Microcomputers:
 A computer with a microprocessor and its central
processing unit is known as a microcomputer.
 They do not occupy space as much as mainframes
do. When supplemented with a keyboard and a
mouse, microcomputers can be called personal
computers.
 A monitor, a keyboard and other similar input-
output devices, computer memory in the form of
RAM and a power supply unit come packaged in a
microcomputer.
 These computers can fit on desks or tables and
prove to be the best choice for single-user tasks.
Designed by Prof. Anosha Khan 1/30/2020
 Desktop computer
 A desktop computer is intended to be used on a single
location.
 The spare parts of a desktop computer are readily
available at relatively lower costs.
 Power consumption is not as critical as that in laptops.
 Desktop computers are widely popular for daily use in the
workplace and households.
 Laptops
 Similar in operation to desktop computers, laptop
computers are miniaturized and optimized for mobile use.
 Laptops run on a single battery or an external adapter
that charges the computer batteries.
 They are enabled with an inbuilt keyboard, touch pad
acting as a mouse and a liquid crystal display.
 Their portability and capacity to operate on battery power
have proven to be of great help to mobile users.
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 Workstations
 These are high-end, expensive computers that are made for
more complex procedures and are intended for one user at a
time.
 Some of the complex procedures consist of science, math and
engineering calculations and are useful for computer design
and manufacturing.
 Enhanced capabilities for performing a special group of task,
such as 3D Graphics or game development.
 Servers
 Type of midrange computer
 Support computer network, sharing files and resources
 They are computers designed to provide services to client
machines in a computer network.
 They have larger storage capacities and powerful processors.
 Running on them are programs that serve client requests and
allocate resources like memory and time to client machines.
 Usually they are very large in size, as they have large
processors and many hard drives.
Designed by Prof. Anosha Khan 1/30/2020

 They are designed to be fail-safe and resistant to crash.

 Mainframe Computer
 Large organizations use mainframes for highly critical
applications such as bulk data processing and ERP.
 Most of the mainframe computers have capacities to host
multiple operating systems and operate as a number of virtual
machines.
 They can substitute for several small servers.
 Large-capacity, high-performance computer that can process
large amounts of data very rapidly
 E.g. used by airlines for thousands of reservations per second
 Super Computers
 The highly calculation-intensive tasks can be effectively
performed by means of supercomputers.
 Used in engineering, scientific simulations, military/weapons
research, weather forecasting
 Their ability of parallel processing and their well-designed
Designed by Prof. Anosha Khan 1/30/2020
memory hierarchy give the supercomputers, large transaction
processing powers.
 Palmtop Computers
 Palmtop computer is small computer that fit the
palm of your hand. It is lightweight, small,
battery powered and general purpose computer.
It is also called pocket PC. Some palmtop
computers are called Personal Digital Assistants
(PDA) which have touch screen for input.
 Tablet
A tablet is a wireless, portable personal computer
with a touch screen interface. The tablet form
factor is typically smaller than a notebook
computer but larger than a smartphone.

Designed by Prof. Anosha Khan 1/30/2020