Secondary storage

Operating Systems Secondary Storage Research Paper

Danny O’Leary 20067817 Computer Forensics and Security

Contents INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................................. 3 WHAT IS SECONDARY STORAGE? ............................................................................................................................ 3 INTERNAL HARD DRIVES .................................................................................................................................... 4 HISTORY OF INTERNAL HARD DRIVES ....................................................................................................................... 4 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF INTERNAL HARD DRIVES .................................................................................... 5 EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES .................................................................................................................................... 6 HISTORY OF EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES....................................................................................................................... 6 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES ................................................................................... 6 USB FLASH DRIVE ............................................................................................................................................... 7 HISTORY OF USB FLASH DRIVES ............................................................................................................................. 7 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF USB FLASH DRIVES .......................................................................................... 7 OPTICAL DISK STORAGE ..................................................................................................................................... 8 HISTORY OF OPTICAL DISK STORAGE ........................................................................................................................ 8 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF OPTICAL DISK STORAGE .................................................................................... 8 FLOPPY DISKS ..................................................................................................................................................... 9 HISTORY OF FLOPPY DISKS .................................................................................................................................... 9 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF FLOPPY DISKS ................................................................................................. 9 CLOUD COMPUTING ........................................................................................................................................ 10 HISTORY OF CLOUD COMPUTING .......................................................................................................................... 10 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF CLOUD COMPUTING....................................................................................... 10 CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................................................... 11 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................................................. 12

Introduction This research topic is about Secondary Storage. It will first explain what Secondary Storage is and then it will move on to specific types of Secondary Storage. For each type of Secondary Storage, it will go through the history of the Secondary Storage device from its beginning to now and it will also give the advantages and disadvantages for current day use of the device. Lastly the conclusion section is where I will go through what I have learned from doing this and will sum up the points from all the sections and say what is better for each specific task.

What is Secondary Storage?

Secondary Storage also known as Auxiliary Storage is any type of storage that is not connected directly to the CPU, even storage devices like the Hard Drive would be considered secondary storage because it isn’t connected directly to the CPU. RAM and Cache memory would be considered Primary Storage because they are connected directly to the CPU (Computerhope.com, 2015). One massive advantage that Secondary Storage has it that it can delete data and re write it with other data. It is needed because Primary Storage is only temporary and a lot of the time it is deleted when the computer is turned off, it’s because of this that Secondary Storage is needed since it will be able to store it for as long as you want (Homepage.cs.uri.edu, 2015).

Internal Hard Drives An internal hard drive, is a hard drive that is located inside the computer. Most of the time the Internal Hard Drive will act as the primary means to store data for the user and it will include having the Operating System, Applications and other types of files(Pc.net, 2015). Internal Hard Drives have a limit on how much they can hold and they have vastly improved their limit over time. Currently a standard hard drive could hold up to 1tb of data.

History of Internal Hard Drives The history of internal hard drives begins in 1956 when IBM created the first ever HDD (Hard Disk Drive). The device itself was massive and not what we recognize as the size of an internal hard drive today and before this means of storing data everything had to be stored manually on sheets and filing cabinets. The hard drive altogether could only store 5mb of data which is a very small amount in today’s terms, but back when it first came out 5mb was considered a massive amount of data Wired.com, 2014).

Below is a picture of IBM’s Hard Drive:

(Wired.com, 2014) In 1963, IBM came up with the first removable hard drive which was extremely important because it allowed people to upgrade and replace their hard drives and they were not stuck with just one. It only held 2.6MB of data (pcworld.com, 2015). In 1979, IBM have improved storage capacity by a lot with a new model known as the ‘3370’ and is capable of storing up to 571MB (pcworld.com, 2015).

In 1980, IBM introduce the first gigabyte hard drive and it’s still massive in size and also costs $40,000. Also in 1980, Seagate makes the first 5.25inch hard disk (pcworld.com, 2015). Then in 1991, IBM bring out another new disk drive that is 3.5 inch in size, but it also stores 1GB of data. By 2006, sizes of hard drives had increased dramatically and in 2006, Seagate brought out a hard drive capable of holding up to 750GB of data:

(pcworld.com, 2015) Since then hard drives have only gotten smaller and a lot more efficient with the average size of a hard drive now reaching 1TB of data.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Internal Hard Drives Advantages   

It has one of the quickest transfer speeds out of all of the different types of Secondary Storage.

They can be replaced/upgraded pretty easily.

They are very cheap for the capacity of what you are getting.

Disadvantages   

A lot of the time, they are used as the only means to store data and they are easy to break which could mean losing all the data that’s on the hard drive.

They have to be compatible with the rest of your computer.

To keep up with standards, they have to be updated quite frequently due to how fast they are improving.

(Backpacktactics.com, 2015)

External Hard Drives An external hard drive, is a hard drive that isn’t in the actual computer, but instead outside the computer and can be connected via a USB or FireWire connection. They usually have high storage capacities and are often used to back up data on the internal hard drive (WhatIs.com, 2015).

History of External Hard Drives A lot of the time, the first IBM Hard Drive is considered an external hard drive because it wasn’t inside the computer, but by some the first External Hard drive is considered to have been introduced to the market by IBM in 1956 (RecordNations.com, 2015). In 1983, Apple introduced their first type of external hard drive known as the ProFile, but for most of this time people were still using internal hard drives. In 1994, USB was produced which meant that external hard drives were a lot easier to connect to a computer and since then like the internal hard drive, they have been growing in capacity and are a lot easier to make backups on because of USB technology (RecordNations.com, 2015).

Advantages and Disadvantages of External Hard Drives Advantages    

They are portable which means you don’t have to use it just for one computer and you can always take it with you.

They have large capacity.

They have fast speeds and they are generally extremely easy to use.

Great for backups of the internal hard drive.

(Steves-digicams.com, 2015) Disadvantages  

They are easier to break than Internal Hard Drives because they are being carried around everywhere and are not actually in the computer.

They overheat easier because they have no fans to keep them cool like the Internal Hard Drive does.

(Dataclinic.co.uk, 2015)

USB Flash Drive USB Flash Drives are small devices that connect to USB ports that contain a relatively small amount of data on them. They are small in size, usually no bigger than 3 inches and are capable of holding about 16 GB of data on average (Techterms.com, 2015).

History of USB Flash Drives The first ever USB Flash Drive was first created in the late 90’s although it is disputed who actually made the first one. In 2001 IBM sold an 8MB USB Flash Drive and by 2003 they had increased the size of their USB Flash Drive to 64MB. Since then, the sizes have increased and the price has dropped and currently it is common to find USB Flash Drives that are 4 – 64GB in size (Kunakorn, 2013).

Advantages and Disadvantages of USB Flash Drives Advantages   

They are portable and easy to carry around.

They can be used for file transfers and are very good for it because of small and easy they are to carry around. As well as that, they universally work on all modern day computers.

They are durable.

Disadvantages  

They are easy to lose because of their size.

They have a pretty short lifespan because of their frequent use.

(Science - Opposing Views, 2015)

Optical Disk Storage Optical Disk Storage is the use of a laser to both read and write data to some form of an optical disk which could be a CD, DVD or a Blu-Ray disk for example. Most of the time Optical Disk Storage/Drive is used to play music or watch a film off of a disk (Education Portal, 2015).

History of Optical Disk Storage Optical Disk storage starts with many different types of disks such as: 1.

2.

3.

4.

CD Laserdisk Magneto-optical Disk MiniDisk

Since then many of the technologies used have been advanced and out of that list, only CD is still used. The same thing happened with the second generation and the only technology that is still used from the second generation is DVD. Currently a lot of third generation technologies are being developed, but the main technology to come from third generation is Blu-ray which could replace DVD eventually.

(Newworldencyclopedia.org, 2015)

Advantages and Disadvantages of Optical Disk Storage Advantages 

It’s compatible with many devices including stuff outside computers e.g. DVD players and CD players.

Disadvantages   

Many of the earlier technologies can only be wrote to once which means that the content cannot be changed after the first time.

They don’t have a big capacity to write stuff to.

They are a lot slower than hard drives with transfer rate

(Newworldencyclopedia.org, 2015)

Floppy Disks Floppy Disks were an early form of computer storage. Most of the time they were used for either distributing software or creating backups (Techterms.com, 2015).

History of Floppy Disks In 1969, the first floppy disks were created, but data couldn’t be put onto these floppy disks since they were read only disks. The size capacity of Floppy Disks was extremely small and by 1980 they had reached a capacity of 1.2MB. It wasn’t until the late 1990’s that floppy disks were replaced by CD ROM’s, but after CD ROM’s came out, floppy disks were no longer used (Techterms.com, 2015).

Advantages and Disadvantages of Floppy Disks Advantages Since CD ROM’s came out, there is no advantage that floppy disks have over CD ROM’s and it is why they are no longer used today.

Disadvantages   

They have a very small capacity.

They have a very slow transfer speed.

Easy to break.

(Techterms.com, 2015)

Cloud Computing Cloud Computing is a form of storage that uses the internet to store the data. Cloud Computing is a massive new industry and is the first of its kind to not use an actual physical object to store data, but instead store it on servers (Griffith, 2013).

History of Cloud Computing The beginning of Cloud Computing started in the 90’s when the World Wide Web was released, mainly Cloud Computing at this time wasn’t actually used for everyday storage, but more so for business’s trying to sell items online where they will have to store both items and transaction history (Van der Molen, 2010). In 2002, Amazon released Amazon Web Services which provided lots of services which included storage on the internet. Since then the industry has took off because of how much potential there is with companies like Microsoft, Dropbox and Google having their own versions of Cloud Storage (ComputerWeekly.com, 2015).

Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Computing Advantages   

Unlimited Storage It’s extremely low cost since there is no physical device It’s a very good form of Back Up

Disadvantages  

Relying on other companies hosting Security Issues

(Viswanathan, 2015)

Conclusion From doing this research paper I learned a lot about Secondary Storage like how an Internal Hard Drive is actually a form of secondary storage. I found out a lot about the history of each device that has been used for storage and how much they have advanced in capacity and speeds since they first came out which is definitely a huge trend for every storage form. I learned how some devices might excel at one thing, but wouldn’t be great for some other uses like how a DVD is great for burning video onto, but it is pretty bad for transferring videos because of the slow transfer speed it has. I learned about the advantages and disadvantages of each different type of storage device which was interesting. Lastly I got a general overview of each type of secondary storage, how they work and how they started off. From this research paper it is easy to see that many different types of storage have a lot of different uses and should never just be used on their own, what makes storage so effective is the variety it has and how different things can be used for storing different information and that’s what makes it so effective.

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