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A storage device holds information. The computer uses this stored information to perform the tasks you tell it to do: print, save, word process, play solitaire!
| Name of Device | Image | How it works |
| Zip Drive | Picture currently not available! | Zip Drive - A Zip Disk can store 100 MB of data. Primarily designed as a removable hard drive. Now, a bigger and better removable hard drive is available = a Jaz drive with a whopping 1 GB of data. |
| Hard Drive | Picture currently not available! | The Hard Drive is the primary device that a computer uses to store information (also called the hard disk). The hard drive magnetically stores data on a stack of rotating disks, called platters. A hard drive has several read/write heads that read and record data on the disks. The amount of information a hard drive can store is measured in bytes. |
ROM or Read Only Memory. RAM is short for Random Access Memory.
ROM is memory that cannot be changed by a program or user. ROM retains its memory even after the computer is turned off . The computer's operating system is sometimes kept in ROM.
RAM is a fast temporary type of memory in which programs and data are stored whilst the computer is switched on. For example, when you load a word processing program it is loaded into RAM. The contents of the computer's screen is also held in RAM.
The main internal backing store is the computer's hard disk or hard drive.
These are disks which spin at very high speeds (around 7,000 revolutions / minute) within a sealed unit inside the computer. Hard disks can usually store very large amounts of data - 20 gigabytes is common in desktop computers. The data stored here will stay where it is until deleted, but needs to be loaded into main store RAM before it can be used.
Your hard disk is where you store:
Name Of Device |
Image |
How it works |
External hard drives |
Picture currently not available! |
These can store very large amounts of data - as much as an internal hard drive - and can be plugged in to your computer via a USB or Firewire port to provide extra storage. Small portable hard drives with capacities up to 20 gigabytes are often used for storing large numbers of music files (MP3 files) for personal entertainment on-the-move. |
Memory sticks |
Picture currently not available! |
A memory stick is a small 'pen top' sized device that holds a large amount of memory - from 32Mb upwards depending on the price paid. This is a USB device and can be used in a similar way to a floppy disk, but is inserted into the USB port - it is then seen by the computer as a removable drive. |
| CD-ROM | Picture currently not available! |
They are optical disks
that use the same technology as musical compact disks.
They store up to 700 Mb of data and a laser beam is used
to read the data off the disk. Data is written onto the CD-ROM disk before it is sold and cannot be changed by the user. As CD-ROMs can store large amounts of data, they can be used for multimedia applications such as encyclopaedias, and can store pictures, sounds and video clips. |
| CD-R and CD-RW | Picture currently not available! |
CD-Rs are blank optical
disks onto which you can write data with a piece of
hardware called a CD writer. They have a similar capacity
to CD-ROMs, but can only be written to once. CD-RWs are blank optical disks which can be written and re-written to, re-using them as often as you want. |
| DVD | Picture currently not available! |
DVD stands for Digital Versatile Disk. They are the same size as CDs, but hold much more data - up to 17 gigabytes. There are several formats on the market, the more expensive ones being recordable like CD's. DVD drives are often found on laptops as combined DVD and CD-RW drives, so the laptop can read and show DVD films, as well as read and write CDs. |