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Objective 1.3 - Hardware Components

Here are the answers to the class activity questions: 1. Three characteristics of magnetic tape are: - It is made of a thin magnetic film or tape - Data is stored linearly along the length of the tape - Tapes can be removed from the drive and stored elsewhere 2. The main purpose of magnetic tape is for backup storage. It allows large amounts of data to be written sequentially and stored offline for protection and archiving. 3. A solid state disk is a type of non-volatile storage that uses integrated circuit assemblies as memory to store data permanently. It has no moving parts. 4. The purpose of a hard disk drive is to provide permanent and high-capacity data storage. It uses

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59 views3 pages

Objective 1.3 - Hardware Components

Here are the answers to the class activity questions: 1. Three characteristics of magnetic tape are: - It is made of a thin magnetic film or tape - Data is stored linearly along the length of the tape - Tapes can be removed from the drive and stored elsewhere 2. The main purpose of magnetic tape is for backup storage. It allows large amounts of data to be written sequentially and stored offline for protection and archiving. 3. A solid state disk is a type of non-volatile storage that uses integrated circuit assemblies as memory to store data permanently. It has no moving parts. 4. The purpose of a hard disk drive is to provide permanent and high-capacity data storage. It uses

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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Objective 1.

3: explain the functions of the major hardware components of a computer


system;

Secondary Storage
DEFINITION
Secondary storage is also called auxiliary storage, backing storage or disk storage. These
devices are used to store data and instructions when they are not being processed.

Secondary storage is more permanent than main memory, since data and instructions are not
lost when the power is turned off. It is also much cheaper than primary storage and is unlimited
since you can have as much of it as you can afford. The most commonly used auxiliary storage
devices are:

MAGNETIC DISK
 Tapes
 Hard disks

OPTICAL STORAGE
 CD ROM
 CD-R
 DVD-ROM
 DVD-R
 DVD-RW
 BLU-RAY

SOLID STATE MEMORY


 Flash memory
 USB drives
 Memory Card
UNITS OF STORAGE

Memory is made up of bistable devices. Bistable means the components that make up memory
can be set to one of two states either on or off. These two states are represented using binary
digits- 0 for off and 1 for on. As such, the smallest unit of storage of memory is called a binary
digit (bit). The amount of data and instructions that can be stored in primary storage or
secondary storage media is measured in bytes.
Byte
A byte is made up of a combination of 8 bits and has the capacity to represent one character
i.e. a letter, a number, a symbol, a punctuation mark or a blank space.

Word
A word is the amount of bits the computer can process in one operation.

Word size
A word size or word length is the number of bits in a word.

Units of Storage

Unit Description Example

Bit 1 or 0 A single pixel in a black and white picture

Byte 8 bits A single character

Kilobyte 1024 bytes A small email is about 2 kilobytes

Megabyte 1024 kilobytes MP3 files take up about 1 megabyte per minute

1024
Gigabyte 1 gigabyte can hold about 300 MP3 songs
megabytes

1024
Terabyte 1 terabyte can hold about 100 DVD-quality films
gigabytes

1024 1 petabyte can hold enough MP3 songs to play continuously


Petabyte
terabytes for over 2000 years - without repeating!
Class Activity

1. List THREE characteristic of a magnetic tape


2. Explain the main purpose of magnetic tape
3. Explain what a solid state disk is.
4. What is the purpose of a hard disk drive
5. Give an example where you would use a Blu-ray disk.
6. The letter ‘A’ comprise of how many bits?
7. You are asked to by a friend to send a video to your Instagram post. You observe that the video
is 2GB. What is the equivalent in Megabytes.

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