Question

Storage

1. Briefly describe a hard drive (HDD). What type(s) of information are stored on a hard drive? How is that information stored? (Optically, magnetically, punched holes, abacus beads?)
2. What is a Solid State Drive (SSD)? What are some key differences between an SSD and an HDD?
3. What is meant by "ribbon cable?" What is the significance of one of the wires in a ribbon cable being a different color (for example, all of the wires in a ribbon cable are gray except that one of them is red or has a red stripe)?
4. What do the following terms mean? MBR, GPT, Partition, Format
5. What do the following terms mean? FAT, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, exFAT
6. Which of the above file systems are preferred in Windows operating systems and why? What about for SD cards and why?
7. If you accidentally delete a file in Windows, is it possible to restore it? _____ What about after you empty the recycle bin? Explain.

Answer 1

1)A hard disk drive or HDD is a secondary storage device for computer and laptops.Hard disk drives are electromechanical data storage device having a fixed size capacity.Some of the prime manufacturers of hard disk are segate ,toshiba and western digital.

All sorts of data are stored on a hard disk like system files,multimedia files like audio and video files.

A hard disk uses magnetic tapes heads to read and write data into the disk.

2)A solid state drive or SSD is a secondary storage device used to store data.It uses Integrated circuits assemblies as memory to store data persistently .It is generally of much less size than a typical HDD.The main advantage of using a SSD is that it is very fast as compared to a HDD.

Some of the differences between HDD and SSD are as follows:-

a)SSD have higher data-transfer rates as compared to HDD.

b)SSD have higher areal storage density as compared to HDD.

c)SSD have better reliability than a HDD.

d)SSD has much lower latency rate than a HDD.

e)Access time in a SSD is much lower than a HDD.

3)A ribbon cable is a cable which has many conducting wires running parallel to each other in the same flat plane.

The shape of a ribbon cable is wide and flat.

It is used for internal wiring in a computer like wiring in the cpu,to connect the hard disk .

It a ribbon cable all the wires are gray but one wire is of a different color like red in order to prevent reverse connection.

The red wire is connected to pin 1 of the connector,this is a default convention in order to prevent reversed connection.

4) MBR stands for Master Boot Record .It is the information stored in the first sector of any hard disk . .It defines where the operating system(os) is stored so that the computer can boot.

GPT stands for GUID (globally unique identifiers )Partition Table .It is a standard for the layout of the partition table used in hard disks and computer.

Partition is the process to segregate different logical divisions in the hard disk .This helps to store data in more logically ordered way.  

Format is the process to delete all the data present in the hard disk all at once.The data formatted can not be restored back.

5)FAT stands for File Allocation Table,It is a file system architecture.It implements file system as a hierarchy of directories and sub directories.It has markers to let the operating system to traverse the file system and know when the end of the file is reached,this is mainly done with the help of entries for each file cluster which enters the file system.

FAT 16 is a file system architecture in which the cluster addresses were 16 bit long which helped to store 65524 clusters per volume .This helped to store much larger files .

FAT 32 is a file system architecture in which the cluster addresses were 32 bit long which helped to store even more clusters per volume than FAT16. This helped to store much larger files .

NTFS is the proprietary file system developed by Microsoft and it is the default file system in windows NT family.It uses advanced data structures to help increase efficiency and it also has enhanced support for metadata.  

ExFAT stands for Extended File Allocation Table ,It is a file system used in flash drives ,ExFAT has the capability of supporting a volume size of up to 512 TB

6)Windows operating syatem uses NTFS file system because it is built by windows itself and the FAT32 cannot support files over 4GB,while NTFS can support large files.

SD cards can use FAT 16 or FAT 32 .

7)We can recover and restore the deleted file from the recycle bin.

If we empty the recycle bin it is still possible to recover the data .This is done by the help of a Data recovery service and software.