Storage & Connectivity Devices

Internal / External Hard Drive Also known as hard disks Internal drive stores the operating system software, application software and the user’s documents External drives come in various sizes and is connected via a USB cable and has an external power source Prices vary depending on size Is portable

Solid State Drive A high-performance plug-and-play storage device that contains no moving parts SSD components include either DRAM or EEPROM memory boards, a memory bus board, a CPU, and a battery card Because they contain their own CPUs to manage data storage, they are a lot than conventional hard disks

Magnetic Tape Use as external drive for storing large amounts of data on a magnetized medium Typically used by organisations for backing up vast amounts of data Can be set up to do this automatically Sturdy and durable for long term use Slow to retrieve and search for data

Optical Storage Device Read and written to by laser CDs holds MB of data DVDs holds up 17GB of data. Comes in different forms: DVD-ROM: Read only DVD-R: Record DVD-RW: Re-writable Blue-ray disks holds up to 25GB of data (single layer) or 50GB (dual layer) Used mainly for large and high quality content

Memory Sticks and Cards Used for storing and transferring files Connected via USB Small, lightweight to carry around and cheap Large storage capacity for their size Easy to lose / damage Now can get encrypted so more secure

Cloud Storage Storage capacity accessed through the internet or a wide area network (WAN) connection Purchased on an as-needed basis Users can expand capacity almost without limit

Connectivity Devices

Network Interface Card (NIC) Allow user to connect to networks via Ethernet cable or Wi-Fi Nowadays integrally fitted into the motherboard Most modern computers will include wireless network facility in addition to the cabled connection

Modem Enables a computer to transmit data over, for example, telephone or cable lines Computer information is stored digitally, whereas information transmitted over telephone lines is transmitted in the form of analogue waves A modem converts between these two forms

Routers Typically small, box-like pieces of equipment that multiple computers can connect to Joins together multiple local area networks (LANs) with a wide area network (WAN or the Internet)

Hubs and Switches Hubs connects multiple computers together in a network Allows each device to talk to the others Anything that comes into one port is sent to all the others (computers) Switches are more efficient than hubs sometimes called (intelligent hubs” Only sends data to where it should go rather than all ports