Chapter 6

Types of Storage
Devices

McGraw-Hill Technology Education Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Describing Storage Devices
• Store data when computer is off
8”
• Two processes 180KB
– Writing data
– Reading data
• Storage devices
– for different generations of computers
• Floppy disk – size? 2.5”
• Hard disk – size? 1.44MB

• Flash disk – size?

• CD, DVD, HD-DVD, BD, …
6-2
 Describing Storage Devices
• Media ( 媒體 ) is the material storing data
– Floppy? HDD? USB? CD/DVD/BD?
– Rubber / metal / gates / …
• Storage devices manage the media
– Magnetic devices use a magnet ( 磁力 )
• Floppy drive, HDD
– Optical devices use lasers ( 光學 )
• CD/DVD/BD drives
– Solid-state devices have physical switches ( 固態電路 )

6-3
 Magnetic Storage

McGraw-Hill Technology Education Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Magnetic Storage Devices
• Magnetic storage devices
– Most common form of storage
– Hard drives, floppy drives, tape
• All work in the same way
• With a read/write head
– What is their difference?
• Rotation speed
• Access way
– Sequential
– Random access

6-5
 Magnetic Storage Devices
• Data storage and retrieval
– Media is covered with tiny particles of iron oxide ( 氧化鐵 )
– Read/write head is an electromagnet ( 電磁鐵 )
– For writing,
• Electromagnet writes charges ( 電極 ) on the media
– Positive charge is a 1 ( 正極 )
– Negative charge is a 0 ( 負極 )
– For reading, electromagnet reads charges
• Drive converts charges into binary
電磁鐵
電流的方向

6-6
鐵的粒子
 Magnetic Storage Devices
• Logical data organization
– Disks must be formatted before use
• i.e., create a map of locations of data.
– Format
• draws tracks ( 軌道 ) on the disk
• Then, a track is divided into sectors ( 扇區 )
– Amount of data that a drive can read
– Usually 512 bytes = 0.5 KB for a sector

6-7
 Magnetic Storage Devices
• Finding data on disk
– Imagine a building – disk
• Track # = floor, Sector # = room #.
• Each track and sector is labeled
– Where are these information?
• File Allocation Table (FAT)
• Listing of where the files are stored
– FAT32
– NTFS
– A sector is still too small
– So, data is organized in clusters ( 集叢 )
– Sequential groups of sectors
• 1 cluster = 64 sectors for FAT32
• 1 cluster = 4 sectors for NTFS (the smallest)
6-8
 Magnetic Storage Devices
• A cluster
– Size of data the OS handles
– (Sector, cluster) are similar to (bit, byte)
– Why different sectors in a cluster?
• For efficiency and saving disk space.
• 1 file of 70 sector
– FAT32: 2 clusters = 128 sectors (64 x 2)
» 58 sectors are wasted
– NTFS: 18 clusters = 72 sectors (4 x 18)
» 2 sectors are wasted

6-9
 Magnetic Storage Devices
• Diskettes
– Also known as floppy disks
– Read with a disk drive
– Spin at 300 RPM
– Takes 200 ms to find data
• Maximum access time
– Max(Rotation speed time, r/w head positioning time)
– Fig. 6A.10
– 3 ½” floppy disk holds 1.44 MB
• Density = 80 tracks * 18 sectors/track * 2 sides
• Each sector = 0.5 KB

6-10
 Magnetic Storage Devices
• Hard disks
– Primary storage device in a computer
– 2 or more aluminum platters
– Each platter has 2 sides
– Spin between 5,400 to 15,000 RPM
• 15000 RPM  SCSI only
– Data found in 9.5 ms or less (= access time)
– Drive capacity greater than 80 GB
• Highest so far 2 TB = 2,048 GB

6-11
 Magnetic Storage Devices
• Removable high capacity disks
– Speed of hard disk
– Portability of floppy disk
– Several variants have emerged
• Iomega Zip disk, Jaz disk.
• Up to 2GB of storage
• Too expensive, but still high speed.
– 5~600 MOP / disk
– Hot swappable hard disks
• Provide GB of data
• Connect via USB, on high-end workstation

6-12
 Magnetic Storage Devices
• Tape drives (or DAT, Digital Audio Tape)
– Best used for
• Infrequently ( 不經常 ) accessed data
• Back-up solutions
– Slow, sequential access
– Capacity up to 400 GB

6-13
 Optical Storage

McGraw-Hill Technology Education Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Optical Storage Devices
• CD-ROM
– Most software ships on a CD
– CD speed is based on the original
• Original CD reads 150 Kbps
• A 10X will read 1,500 Kbps
– Standard CD holds 700 MB
– Some special CD holds 900MB or even 1GB
• But still not enough
– Now CD-ROM mostly has phased out
• Because of shortage of storage

6-15
 Optical Storage Devices
• DVD-ROM
– Digital Video Disk
• Or formally Digital Versatile ( 多用途 ) Disk
– Use both sides of the disk optionally
– Single side, single layer = 4.7GB
• DVD-5, DVD-9 (double/dual layer)
– Capacities can reach 18 GB
• Double layer + double side
• 4.7GB x 2 layers x 2 sides = 18.8GB
– DVD players can read CDs
• That’s why CD-ROM has phased out and replaced

6-16
 Recordable Optical Technologies
• CD Recordable (CD-R)
– Create a data or audio CD by the device
– Data cannot be changed once it is written
– Can continue adding data
• until the CD is full
• CD Rewritable (CD-RW)
– Create a reusable CD
• Data can be erased at any time.
• Can be formatted virtually as a very large floppy disk
– Before USB flash disk, CD-RW is a replacement for floppy
– However, always corrupted, and requires reformatting.
• Supported by software like Nero InCD.
– May be read in all CD players
– Can reuse about 100 times
6-17
 Recordable Optical Technologies
• DVD Recordable/Rewritable
– Several different formats exist
• DVD+RW, DVR-RW, DVD-RAM
• None is a standard
• Allows home users to create DVDs
• Cannot be read in all players
– Currently a normal DVD drive can support
all the above formats
• At least for reading
• May not support writing

6-18
 Solid-State Storage

McGraw-Hill Technology Education Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Solid State Devices
• Data is stored physically
– Using electric circuitry (gates)
– Large capacity + high speed
• No magnets or laser used for data transfer
and conversion
– Very stable
– Not affected by other environmental factors
• Heat, force
• Very fast
– up to 300 MB/s read speed
– up to 200 MB/s write speed

6-20
 Solid State Devices
• Flash memory card
– Combination of RAM and ROM
– Usually used as an external memory card
– Found in cameras and USB drives
• E.g., SD, CF, MS, USB flash disk
– Long term updateable storage
• i.e., even without electricity
– So far, the largest in the market is 32GB
– Speed 10 ~ 30 MB/s
• Limited by the interface ( 接口 , 介面 )
• E.g., USB 2.0

6-21
 Solid State Devices
• Solid State Disk (SSD)
– SLC (Single Level Cell) -- 1 bit for 1 cell
• Expensive, fast
– MLC (Multiple Level Cell) – multiple bits for 1 cell
• Cheap, slow
– Future replacement for HDD
– Up to 300+ MB/s

6-22
 Solid State Devices
• Smart cards
– Credit cards with a chip
– Chip stores a little amount of data
– Eventually may be used for digital cash
– Can be used as electronic keys
• Intelligent Smart card
– With a tiny microprocessor
– Function like a computer
• Input, processing, output
• for only very simple task
– e.g., security

6-23
 Solid State Devices
• Physical RAM disk drive
– Large amount of (old) SDRAM as the storage
• E.g., 133/200Mhz SDRAM (older than DDR-1)
– Extremely fast and expensive
• It is actually the RAM!!
• So far 4~8GB is the maximum
• A drive = 1200 MOP, 8G RAM = 400 MOP.
– Volatile storage
– Require battery backups
• Usually last for 12 hours
– Still need hard disk for the backup

6-24
 Measuring Drive
Performance

McGraw-Hill Technology Education Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Drive Performance
• Average access time
– Also known as seek time
• Time to locate desired data
– Depends on two factors
• Time to access a track
• RPM (Rotation Per Minute)
– Measured in milliseconds
(ms)
– Hard drive: 7 ~ 12 ms
– CD between 80 and 800 ms
– SSD? 0.1 to 0.01 ms

6-26
 Drive Performance
• Data transfer rate
– How fast data can be read
– Measured in MBps or KBps
– Hard drive ranges from 15 to 150 MBps
• For SCSI, the highest is up to 320MBps
– CD ROMS depend on X factor
• 40x CD transfers 40 x 150 KBps
• For DVD, 1x = 900KBps
– Floppy disks transfer at 45 KBps

6-27
 Improving Drive
Performance

McGraw-Hill Technology Education Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Optimizing Performance
• Disk optimization ( 優化 )
– Handled by operating system tool
• To make the HDD run smoother and better
• So that system performance can be increased
– Routine disk maintenance
– Optimization should be run monthly
– The procedures for optimization
• Clean up unnecessary files
• Scan for disk errors
• Defragmentation
• File compression

6-29
 Optimizing Performance
• Clean up unnecessary files
– Delete temp files
– Delete obsolete data files
– Uninstall unused programs
– Files should be cleaned weekly

6-30
 Optimizing Performance
• Scan a disk for errors
– Find out bad spots on the media
– Fix the error (bad spots)
• Move data to a good spot
• Mark the spot as bad (Never use the spot again)
– Disks should be scanned monthly

6-31
 Optimizing Performance
• Defragment a disk (De = 除去 , Fragment = 碎
片)
– File fragments
– Fragmented files load slower
– Defragmentation puts the fragments together
– Disks should be defragged monthly

6-32
 Optimizing Performance
• File compression
– Shrinks the size of a file
• Takes up less space on disk
– But reduces a disk’s performance
– Only will increase disk capacity
– WinZip and WinRAR

6-33
 File Compression

763 KB
on disk

Compressed
157 KB

6-34
 Drive Interface

McGraw-Hill Technology Education Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Drive Interface Standards
• Interface
– How the device is connected
• which connector is it using?
• E.g., PATA? SATA? SCSI? USB? 1394?
– Drive controllers (usually on motherboard)
• allow data transfer from the drive to other devices
– Dictates transfer rate and access time

6-36
 Drive Interface Standards
• Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics
– EIDE
– Generic term for drive controllers
– Several names
• Fast IDE
• Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA)
• Up to 2 devices per controller
• Most computers have 2 EIDE controllers
– PATA – Parallel
– SATA – Serial
– SATA II – 3Gb/s
– SATA III – 6Gb/s
6-37
 Drive Interface Standards

• Small Computer System Interface

– SCSI
– Higher transfer rates than EIDE
– Up to 128 devices per SCSI
controller
• Computers may have several SCSI
controllers
– Many versions exist
• Versions are typically incompatible
– Found in servers and workstations

6-38
 Drive Interface Standards
• USB and FireWire
– Mostly used for external drives
– Transfer rate is limited
– Standard interface for most devices

6-39
 Chapter 6

End of Chapter

McGraw-Hill Technology Education Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.