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Storage - Answers

Q1. 

Device Optical, magnetic or
solid state?
Typical uses?

Pen drive

 

 Solid state Often used for making personal back-ups of files. They can be used to distribute files and applications by companies. You can run complete operating systems from them rather than using your computer's operating system and hard drive. They can be set up as 'rescue disks' in case your computer fails.

DVD drive

 

 Optical Used to distribute films and games. Can be used to back-up personal files with the right drive and disk. 

SD card

 

 Solid state Used in many electronic devices e.g. mobile phones and cameras to expand storage cababilities. Can be used like a hard drive e.g. for Raspberry Pi or in Chromebook computers. Can be used as a back-up device, especially if a USB adapter is used. Can be used to distribute software e.g. maps to GPS devices.

Blu-Ray

 

 Optical  This format is used to distribute films and games in high definition. 

Magnetic tape

 

 Magnetic Tapes can hold huge amounts of data and so are typically used to back-up the data of all the users in entire networks. Schools typically use magnetic tape devices, which start in the middle of the night. They can be a bit slow because to recover a file, you have to go the beginning of the tape and start looking from there but they are still used a lot because of their high storage capacity for low cost.

Q2 - Q5. Many companies these days do not back up their work onto a physical medium such as a tape or DVD but use internet storage instead. When they want to back something up, the data is often first 'compressed' to make it smaller. Data compression just means squashing the data and removing any unnecessary parts like blank space to make the overall file smaller. Zip files, as they are often known, are in common use when transfering data around the Internet and can be easily made using Windows File Manager, for example. That means you can fit more into the same amount of space you had before, and it's quicker to send. It is then sent over the Internet to a company, who stores it on their computers. This has quite a few advantages. You can set up the back-ups to automatically happen so no one will forget to do them. You don't need to buy expensive equipment to back-up work and you can't lose back-ups. Many companies will also keep every version of a file, so every time you make a change, a new copy is made. If you change your mind, you can always get back an earlier version. Cloud storage also means that if you write a document on e.g. a computer, you can easily get back the same file on your tablet or another computer or your mobile - you don't need to take a back-up of the file. If you make some changes, the changes are 'synchronised' with all of the other files on all of your other computing devices (as long as they have the cloud software installed). That means there is only ever one copy of the same document, not lots of different versions, which can be confusing. Of course, you need an Internet connection and some companies aren't happy about sending their valuable data to another company to look after for security reasons. Personal data and what happens if you store private data or emails or photos on other people's systems is a real concern. There are often buried in the Terms and Conditions of these companies, documents which can be hundreds of pages long of small print, stating all kinds of rights that the company say you are agreeing to by signing up with them. Few people bother to read or can understand these documents - they just tick the box that says they agree because it's 'free'! However, this way of storing data, known as 'cloud storage' is becoming increasingly popular. Many cloud storage companies offer a certain amount of free storage to individuals. You could do a search and start using cloud storage yourself! You could set up free accounts with Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive, Amazon Cloud Drive, Apple ICloud, Cubby, IDrive and so on.

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