Computer Science

Storage Media & devices

FARAZ ALI
Email: faraz.ali@ucp.edu.pk, farazalich@yahoo.com
Tel: +92-321-404-1740
 OBJECTIVES
• Different Storage Devices & Storage Media

• Floppy Disks, Optical Disks, Zip Disks

• Characteristics & working of a Hard Disk

• Enterprise Storage

• CD’s & DVD’s

• PC Cards

• Other Types of Miniature Storage Media

 Storage Devices

• A hardware device which can be used to store digital data and applications which may be in the
form of images, video, audio, etc. is called a storage device.
• It stores data when computer is off .
• Two processes are involved in storing data
1. Writing
2. Reading
• It is a key component of a computer and the hard drive is one of its examples.
• There are two types for Storage Devices available
1. Internal Storage
• HDDs and SSDs
2. External Storage
• External HDDs and SSDs
• Flash memory devices
• Optical Storage Devices
• Floppy Disks

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Storage Devices

• Primary Storage:
• Random Access Memory (RAM)
• Secondary Storage:
• Hard Disk Drives (HDD)
• Solid-State Drives (SSD)

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Storage Devices

• Primary Storage:
• Random Access Memory (RAM)
• Secondary Storage:
• Hard Disk Drives (HDD)
• Solid-State Drives (SSD)
• Storage Terms
• Media is the material storing data
• Storage device manage the media
• Magnetic devices use magnet
• Optical devices use lasers
• Solid state devices have physical switches

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Magnetic Storage Devices

• Most common form of storage

• HDD, Floppy drives and Tape drive
• All magnetic drives work the same.

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Magnetic Storage Devices

• Data storage and retrieval

• Media is covered with iron oxide
• Read/write head is a magnet
• Magnet writes charges on the media
• Positive charge is 1
• Negative charge is 0
• Magnet reads charges
• Drive converts charges into binary format.

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Magnetic Storage Devices

• Data organization
• Disks must be formatted before use
• Format draws tracks on the disk
• Tracks is divided into sectors
• Amount of data a drive can read

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Magnetic Storage Devices

• Finding data on disk

• Each Track and sector is labeled
• Some of them are reserved
• Listing of where files are stored
• File allocation table (FAT)
• FAT 16
• FAT 32
• NTFS
• Data is organized in clusters
• Size of data the OS handles

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Magnetic Storage Devices

• Diskettes
• Also knows as floppy disks
• Read with a disk drive
• Spin at 300 RPM
• Takes .2 seconds to find data
• 3 ½ floppy disk holds 1.44 MB of data.

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 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
• Data found in 9.5 ms or less
• Older Drive hold 32mb to 40 GB
• Modern HDD hold 250GB till 8TB

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Magnetic Storage Devices

• Removable High capacity disks

• Speed of HDD
• Portability of floppy disk
• Several variants have emerged
• High capacity
• Hot swappable HDD
• Provide data in GB’s and TB’s
• Connect via USB , fire wire

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Magnetic Storage Devices

• Tape Drives
• Best used for
• Infrequently accessed data
• Backup solutions
• Slow sequential access
• Capacity exceeds 200GB

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Magnetic Storage Devices

• CD & DVD ROM

• Most software ships on a CD or DVD depending on the size of software
• Read and write using laser
• CD or DVD or Blue ray wavelength of the laser will vary along with the rotational speed of
the disc.
• It stores minimum of 700Mb of data and maximum it store 50 GB of data.
• There are three common types of optical media:-
• Read only formats
• Recordable and rewriteable discs
• Rewriteable blue-ray formats

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Magnetic Storage Devices

Read only formats

Some optical discs are read-only, which means they can't be used to store new data, and the "-ROM"
suffix is used to indicate this format. Commercial software, when it ships on disc, is commonly sold on
CD-ROM and DVD-ROM, while read-only Blu-ray is rarely used for anything except movie
distribution (and even that is quickly being supplanted by streaming services)
Recordable and rewriteable discs
Many optical media formats have a suffix that includes an "R," which indicates that the disc can be
written to a single time, so once the disc is filled with new data, it is permanent. A "RW" disc is
rewritable, which indicates that you can write, erase, and rewrite data to it multiple times, like a regular
hard or flash drive (though many RW discs have limitations on how many times they can be rewritten).
Some common formats include: CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW and others.
Rewriteable blue-ray formats
These exist but, since they arrived so recently (starting around 2003, with new versions arriving as
recently as 2017), it isn't a popular consumer format. They've already been made obsolete by a host of
competing technologies like flash drives, high-capacity HDDs, SSDs, and cloud storage.

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Magnetic Storage Devices

Read only formats

Some optical discs are read-only, which means they can't be used to store new data, and the "-ROM"
suffix is used to indicate this format. Commercial software, when it ships on disc, is commonly sold on
CD-ROM and DVD-ROM, while read-only Blu-ray is rarely used for anything except movie
distribution (and even that is quickly being supplanted by streaming services)
Recordable and rewriteable discs
Many optical media formats have a suffix that includes an "R," which indicates that the disc can be
written to a single time, so once the disc is filled with new data, it is permanent. A "RW" disc is
rewritable, which indicates that you can write, erase, and rewrite data to it multiple times, like a regular
hard or flash drive (though many RW discs have limitations on how many times they can be rewritten).
Some common formats include: CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW and others.
Rewriteable blue-ray formats
These exist but, since they arrived so recently (starting around 2003, with new versions arriving as
recently as 2017), it isn't a popular consumer format. They've already been made obsolete by a host of
competing technologies like flash drives, high-capacity HDDs, SSDs, and cloud storage.

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Solid State Devices

• SSD is a new generation of storage device used in computers. SSDs use flash-based memory, which
is much faster than a traditional mechanical hard disk.
• Upgrading to an SSD is one of the best ways to speed up your computer.
• An SSD, or solid-state drive, is a type of storage device used in computers.
• This non-volatile storage media stores persistent data on solid-state flash memory.
• SSDs replace traditional hard disk drives (HDDs) in computers and perform the same basic
functions as a hard drive.
• Data is stored Physically
• No magnets or laser is used to read and write data
• Extremely fast

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Solid State Devices

• Large amount of SDRAM

• Extremely fast
• Volatile storage
• Require backups
• Mostly large data is stored for long term storage.
• In modern computers SSD is used as primary disk for operating system for fast booting and data
access.

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Solid State Devices

• Flash Memory
• Found in cameras and USB drives
• Combination of RAM and ROM
• Long term updateable storage
• Smart Card
• CNIC / Credit cards / debit cards with a chip
• Chip Stores data
• Eventually may be used for id information and cash withdrawal.
• In hotel it is used as electronic key

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Drive Performance

• Average access time

• Also known as seek time
• Time t find desired data
• Measured in milliseconds
• Depends on two factors
• RPM
• Time to access a track
• Hard drive between 6 and 12ms
• CD between 80 and 800ms

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Drive Performance

• Data Transfer rate

• How fast data can be read
• Measured in Bps or bps
• Hard drive ranges from 15 to 160 MBps
• CD ROMS depend on X factors
• 24x CD transfer 24 x 150 KBps
• Floppy disks transfer at 45 kBps

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Drive Performance

• Data Transfer rate

• How fast data can be read
• Measured in Bps or bps
• Hard drive ranges from 15 to 160 MBps
• CD ROMS depend on X factors
• 24x CD transfer 24 x 150 KBps
• Floppy disks transfer at 45 kBps

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Optimizing Performance

• Disk Optimization
• Handled by operating system tool
• Routine disk maintenance
• Optimization should be run monthly
• Clean up unnecessary files
• Delete temp files
• Uninstall unused programs
• Delete obsolete data files
• Files should be cleaned weekly

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Optimizing Performance
• Disk Optimization
• Handled by operating system tool
• Routine disk maintenance
• Optimization should be run monthly
• Clean up unnecessary files
• Delete temp files
• Uninstall unused programs
• Delete obsolete data files
• Files should be cleaned weekly

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Optimizing Performance
• Scan a disk for errors
• Bad spots on the media
• Find and fix the error
• Move data to a good spot
• Mark the spot as bad
• Disks should be scanned monthly
• Defragment a disk
• Files fragment when resaved
• Fragmented files load slower
• Defragmented puts the fragments together
• Disks should be defragged monthly

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Optimizing Performance
• Defragment a disk

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Optimizing Performance
• File compression
• Shrinks the size of a file
• Takes up less space on disk
• Reduce a disks performance
• Will increase disk capacity
• PkZip, WinZip and WinRAR

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Drive Interface Standards
• Interfaces
• How the device is connected
• Drive controllers allow transfer of data
• Dictates transfer rate and access time.
• Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics
• EIDE
• Generic term for drive controllers
• Fast Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE)
• Advance Technology Attachment (ATA)
• Small Computer System Interface
• SCSI
• Higher transfer rate than EDIE
• More that 40 devices per SCSI controller
• Computers may have several SCSI controllers
• Found in servers and workstations

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Drive Interface Standards
• USB and FireWire
• External drives
• Transfer rate is limited
• Many devices can be connected

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Enterprise Storage
• An Enterprise Storage System is a centralized repository for business information.
• It provides a common resource for data sharing, management and protection via connections to
other computer systems.
• Enterprise storage systems are designed to process heavy workloads of business-critical
information.
• In general there are three types of storage an enterprise may consider:
• Direct Attached Storage (DAS)
• Network Attached Storage (NAS)
• Storage Area Network (SAN)

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Enterprise Storage
Direct Attached Storage (DAS)
•DAS refers to storage that is directly attached to a server--this is usually in the form of SAS, SATA or
SCSI disks with an embedded array controller.
•Redundancy can be obtained via either hardware-level RAID managed by the disk controller or
software RAID managed by the operating system.
•DAS consists of one or more storage units such as hard drives, solid-state drives, optical disc drives
within an external enclosure.

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Enterprise Storage
Network Attached Storage (NAS)
•A NAS system is a storage device connected to a network that allows storage and retrieval of data
from a centralized location for authorized network users and heterogeneous clients.
•NAS can refer to either a server offering file-sharing services to the network or to a dedicated
appliance that does nothing but provide data storage, access, and management services to network
clients.
•Number of devices connection to a NAS is not limited by physical limitations such as port space, its
performance is heavily dependent on the speed of a network and the amount of congestion.

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
 Enterprise Storage
Storage Area Network (SAN)
•SAN is a network of storage devices that can be accessed by multiple servers or computers, providing
a shared pool of storage space.
•Each computer on the network can access storage on the SAN as though they were local disks
connected directly to the computer.

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)
Thank You
Question and Answers

Faraz Ali
(Computer Forensic Department)