In computing, mass storage refers to the storage of large amounts of information in a persisting and machine-readable fashion. Computing is usually defined like the activity of using and developing Computer technology Computer hardware and software. The term machine-readable (or computer-readable) refers to information Encoded in a form which can be read (i Storage media for mass storage include hard disks, floppy disks, flash memory, optical discs, magneto-optical discs, magnetic tape, drum memory, punched tape (mostly historic) and holographic memory (experimental). A data storage device is a device for recording (storing information (data A hard disk drive ( HDD) commonly referred to as a hard drive, hard disk, or fixed disk drive, is a Non-volatile storage device A floppy disk is an increasingly Obsolete data storage medium that is composed of a disk of thin flexible ("floppy" Magnetic storage medium encased Flash memory is non-volatile computer memory that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed A magneto-optical drive is a kind of Optical disc drive capable of writing and rewriting data upon a magneto-optical disc. Magnetic tape is a medium for Magnetic recording generally consisting of a thin magnetizable coating on a long and narrow strip of Plastic. Drum memory is a magnetic Data storage device and was an early form of Computer memory widely used in the 1950s and into the 1960s invented by Gustav Tauschek Punched tape or paper tape is a largely obsolete form of Data storage, consisting of a long strip of paper in which holes are punched to store data Holographic data storage is a potential replacement technology in the area of high-capacity Data storage currently dominated by magnetic and conventional optical data storage Mass storage includes devices with removable and non-removable media. In Computer storage, removable media refers to storage media which can be removed from its reader device conferring portability on the data it carries It does not include random access memory (RAM), which is volatile in that it loses its contents after power loss. Volatile memory, also known as volatile storage or primary storage device, is Computer memory that requires power to maintain the stored information
Mass storage devices are characterized by:
Today, magnetic disks are predominant storage media in personal computers. Seek time is one of the three delays associated with reading or writing Data on a Computer 's Disk drive, and somewhat similar for CD or A personal computer ( PC) is any Computer whose original sales price size and capabilities make it useful for individuals and which is intended to be operated Optical discs, however, are almost exclusively used in the large-scale distribution of retail software, music and movies because of the cost and manufacturing efficiency of the moulding process used to produce DVD and compact discs and the nearly-universal presence of reader drives in personal computers and consumer appliances. DVD (also known as " Digital Versatile Disc " or " Digital Video Disc " - see Etymology)is A Compact Disc (also known as a CD) is an Optical disc used to store digital data, originally developed for storing digital audio CD-ROM (an initialism of "Compact Disc Read-Only Memory " is a pre-pressed Compact Disc that contains data accessible to but not writable [1] Flash memory (in particular, NAND flash) has an established and growing niche in removable storage and on portable devices such as notebook computers and cell phones because of its portability and low power consumption. Flash memory is non-volatile computer memory that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed Flash memory is non-volatile computer memory that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed A laptop computer, also known as a notebook computer, is a small Personal computer designed for mobile use. [2][3]
The design of computer architectures and operating systems are often dictated by the mass storage and bus technology of their time. In Computer engineering, computer architecture is the conceptual design and fundamental operational structure of a Computer system An operating system (commonly abbreviated OS and O/S) is the software component of a Computer system that is responsible for the management and coordination In Computer architecture, a bus is a subsystem that transfers data between computer components inside a Computer or between computers [4] Desktop operating systems such as Windows are now so closely tied to the performance characteristics of magnetic disks that it is difficult to deploy them on other media like flash memory without running into space constraints, suffering serious performance problems or breaking applications. Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft.
Mass storage devices used in desktop and most server computers typically have their data organized in a file system. In Computing, a file system (often also written as filesystem) is a method for storing and organizing Computer files and the data they contain to make The choice of file system is often important in maximizing the performance of the device: general purpose file systems (such as NTFS and HFS, for example) tend do poorly on slow-seeking optical storage such as compact discs. NTFS (New Technology File System Is the standard File system of Windows NT, including its later versions Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows
Some relational databases can also be deployed on mass storage devices without an intermediate file system or storage manager. A relational database is a Database that groups data using common attributes found in the data set Oracle and MySQL, for example, can store table data directly on raw block devices. Oracle Database (commonly referred to as Oracle RDBMS or simply Oracle) is a Relational database management system (RDBMS produced and marketed by MySQL is a Relational database management system (RDBMS which has more than 11 million installations
On removable media, archive formats (such as tar archives on magnetic tape, which pack file data end-to-end) are sometimes used instead of file systems because they are more portable and simpler to stream. In Computer storage, removable media refers to storage media which can be removed from its reader device conferring portability on the data it carries In Computing, tar (derived from tape archive) is both a File format (in the form of a type of archive Bitstream) and the name Magnetic tape has been used for Data storage for over 50 years See also Software portability In Computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created Streaming multimedia is Multimedia that is constantly received by and normally presented to an end-user while it is being delivered by a streaming provider (the
On embedded computers, it is common to memory map the contents of a mass storage device (usually ROM or flash memory) so that its contents can be traversed as in-memory data structures or executed directly by programs. In Computer science, a memory map is a structure of data (which usually resides in memory itself that indicates how memory is laid out