Task 4 - Storage Devices

FOUNDATION

HIGHER

Q1) DESCRIBE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A 'BYTE' AND A 'KILOBYTE'.
First of all, a kilobyte is large than a byte, so a storage device with 1 kilobyte of memory would be able to hold 1024 times as much as a storage device with one byte.

Q2) LIST THREE THINGS THAT YOU KNOW ABOUT A HARD DISK.
It is a non-volatile storage device.
They tend to have high amounts of memory
They store digitally encoded data on the spinning 'platters'

Q3) OUTLINE TWO ADVANTAGES AND TWO DISADVANTAGES OF USING A HARD DISK TO BACK UP YOUR DATA.
Advantages;
It has a high storage capacity.
It is cheaper by cost per megabyte than over storage devices.
Disadvantages;
They can crash and shut down the computer, or even lose your data.
It is difficult to transfer the data from one computer to the other.

Q4) COMPARE AND CONTRAST A HARD DISK WITH RAM.
A hard disk accesses data much slower than a RAM chip would, however a hard disk would have a much higher storage capacity than RAM.
RAM also loses all data when the computer is switched off, while the hard disk keeps it.

Q5) EXPLAIN HOW A HARD DISK WORKS.
The hard disk contains metal platters with are coated with magnetic substance. The data is stored in this magnetic material. So a hard disk is essentially a magnetic storage device.
In order for the hard disk to work, the platters spin ridiculously fast as a head reads the data just above the platter's surface.

Q6) YOU ARE ATTENDING A JOB INTERVIEW FOR AN IT TECHNICIANS POST. DURING THE INTERVIEW, YOU ARE ASKED WHAT STORAGE DEVICE YOU WOULD RECOMMEND FOR BACKING UP THE SCHOOL SYSTEM OVERNIGHT. YOU NEED TO EXPLAIN AND JUSTIFY YOUR DECISION.
I would use magnetic tape to back up the school's system every day because it has a high storage capactiy. It uses serial access to find the data, but this would not be a problem because it would not need to be found quickly.
It is relatively cheap and it can also be set up to back up data overnight, or even over the weekend.