STORAGE ORGANISATION

We know about the basics of computers such as Central Processing Unit (CPU), Memory, Input/Output and peripheral devices. We will discuss one of the most important component of a computer system known as memory unit.

Memory unit is an important component of a computer where all the data and information is stored in the form of binary digits (combination of 0’s and 1’s) and retrieved whenever it is necessary. Computer system uses a variety of devices for storing the instructions and data. These memory devices can be in different categories according to access time, storage capacity & cost per bit of storage. Detailed discussion  will be on storage devices and their organization.

Here we will concentrate on storage organization of the different types of memory devices such as RAM, ROM, Hard disk, Floppy disk, Magnetic disk, Magnetic Tapes, CDROM, and DVD etc. RAM, ROM comes under semiconductor memory, Harddisk, Floppy disk, and Magnetic tapes come under magnetic memory and CDROM, DVD etc comes under Optical memory.

This article basically explains the storage organization, storage devices for different types of memory systems and the importance of memory hierarchy. The memory system is categories according to access time, storage capacity & costperbit of storage.

Based on these criteria, memory is broadly categories into two types: Primary memory & secondary memory. All modern computers use semiconductor memory as its main memory (or primary memory). Semiconductor memory is known as random access memory (RAM). Although these are very fast memory but are very expensive. Thus semiconductor (primary) memory of today’s computer is not sufficient, since these have very limited capacity. Thus there is a need of an additional memory, which should be inexpensive, nonvolatile in nature and having large capacity. Magnetic (secondary) memory is a permanent nonvolatile, type memory. Here we have discussed the two types of magnetic memory namely magnetic disks (i.e., harddisk and floppy disk) and magnetic tapes. Magnetic disks are the most common form of secondary storage because they provide fast access and high storage capacities at a reasonable cost.

Here we have discussed the various types of storage devices used by the computer system. A cost effective technique for the design of large computer systems is the use of a hierarchy of memory technologies. The overall goal of Memory Hierarchy is to obtain the highest possible access speed while minimizing the total cost of the memory system.

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