Paper 1 - Secondary Storage and Systems software

what does secondary storage store

all data that is not in use

what is a hard disk drive made up of

a stack of magnetised metal disks that spin thousands of times per second

what are the advantages of HDDs over SSDs

HDDs are cheaper

HDDS have a higher capacity

HDDs have longer read/write life than SSDs

what are the advantages of SSDs over HDDs

SSDs are faster

SSDs don’t need fragmenting

SSDs are more shock-proof than HDDs

HDDs make some noise whereas SSDs are silent

why are SSDs more robust

they don’t have any moving parts

Give 3 examples of optical discs

CD

DVD

Blu-ray

what are the advantages of optical discs

they’re very cheap per GB

portable

won’t be damaged by water and shocks

how much can CDs store

around 700MB

how much can DVDs store

around 4.7 GB

how much can Blu-rays store

around 25 GB

why are optical discs use declining

as internet speeds have increased streaming and download services have removed the need for them

what storage device has the largest storage capacity

magnetic tape

what storage device has the least storage capacity

Optical disk

what storage device is the cheapest per GB

Magnetic tape

what storage device is the priciest per GB

SSD

which storage device has the faster read/write speed

SSD

which storage device has the slowest read/write speed

optical disc

why are magnetic tapes often used by large oraganisations in archive libraries

to store huge amounts of data

what are the main functions of an operating system

communicate with internal and external hardware

provide a user interface

provide a platform for different applications to run

allow the computer to multi-task by controlling memory resources and the CPU

deal with file management and disk management

manage the security of the system

What is a peripheral

external hardware connected to the computer

what is a device driver

a piece of software that allows applications to communicate with a piece of hardware

what does a user interface do

provides a way for the user to interact with the computer

what is multi-tasking (OS)

when an operating system runs multiple programs and applications at the same time

what is file-management

the organisation, movement and deletion of files

what is disk management

organisation and maintenance of the hard disk

what is defragmentation

reorganising data on a hard drive to put broken up files back together and collect up the free space

what is flash storage used for

to expand the storage capacity of small devices which are too small for SSDs or HDDs

what is an example of flash storage

SD card

describe the performance of flash storage compared to SSd

much slower read/write times and have a much shorter read/write life