Secondary storage

Secondary storage

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Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. In this lesson, we will be introduced to secondary storage and take an in-depth look at solid-state storage. We will discover the need for secondary storage, through assessing the devices we have learnt about already. By the end of the lesson, we will be able to explain how solid-state storage works, and describe the advantages and disadvantages of such devices.

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This content is made available by Oak National Academy Limited and its partners and licensed under Oak’s terms & conditions (Collection 1), except where otherwise stated.

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5 Questions

Q1.
Which of the following are characteristics of RAM? (Select all that apply)
Non-volatile
Correct answer: Read and Write
Read only
Correct answer: Volatile
Q2.
What is usually stored on the ROM inside your computer?
Documents
Correct answer: Instructions needed to 'boot up' the computer
Photos and Videos
The instructions for a program
Q3.
What impact does larger RAM have on the operation of a computer?
It gets hotter
It runs more slowly
It will boost the internet speed
Correct answer: Programs run more efficiently
Q4.
How many levels of cache are typically in a computer system?
One
Ten
Correct answer: Three
Two
Q5.
What feature of cache allows it to improve the performance of a computer?
It's capacity
It's physical size
It's temperature
Correct answer: The speed that data can be read

5 Questions

Q1.
Which features of RAM make it unsuitable for long term storage? (Select all that apply)
Correct answer: It has a small capacity
It is fast to read & write
Correct answer: It is not portable
Correct answer: It is volatile
Q2.
What features of ROM make it unsuitable for long term storage? (Select all that apply)
Correct answer: It can only be read from and not written to
Correct answer: It has a tiny capacity
It is non-volatile
Correct answer: It is not portable
Q3.
What are the three categories of secondary storage?
Optical, Plastic and the Cloud
Correct answer: Solid state, Optical and Magnetic
The Cloud, Magnetic and Plastic
The Cloud, Optical and Solid state
Q4.
Solid state drives are fast to read and write and take less energy to run than other devices. Which feature allows them to do this?
Correct answer: No moving parts
The storage capacity
Their physical size
They are silent when running
Q5.
Which device has faster read and write speeds?
Correct answer: RAM
Solid state storage

Lesson appears in

UnitComputing / Computer Systems

Computing