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There are four major storage levels. [1] Internal – Processor registers and cache. Main – the system RAM and controller cards. On-line mass storage – Secondary storage. Off-line bulk storage – Tertiary and Off-line storage. This is a general memory hierarchy structuring. Many other structures are useful.
Tertiary storage or tertiary memory [7] is a level below secondary storage. Typically, it involves a robotic mechanism which will mount (insert) and dismount removable mass storage media into a storage device according to the system's demands; such data are often copied to secondary storage before use. It is primarily used for archiving rarely ...
A direct-access storage device (DASD) (pronounced / ˈ d æ z d iː /) is a secondary storage device in which "each physical record has a discrete location and a unique address". The term was coined by IBM to describe devices that allowed random access to data, the main examples being drum memory and hard disk drives . [ 1 ]
Better yet, bubble memory devices needed no moving parts: the field that pushed the bubbles along the surface was generated electrically, whereas media like tape and disk drives required mechanical movement. Finally, because of the small size of the bubbles, the density was in theory much higher than existing magnetic storage devices.
Magnetic sequential access memory is typically used for secondary storage in general-purpose computers due to their higher density at lower cost compared to RAM, as well as resistance to wear and non-volatility. Magnetic tape is a type of sequential access memory still in use; historically, drum memory has also been used.
Hard disk drives were introduced by IBM in 1956, [5] and were the dominant secondary storage device for general-purpose computers beginning in the early 1960s. HDDs maintained this position into the modern era of servers and personal computers , though personal computing devices produced in large volume, like mobile phones and tablets , rely on ...
Other early drum storage device development occurred at Birkbeck College (University of London), [9] Harvard University, IBM and the University of Manchester. An ERA drum was the internal memory for the ATLAS-I computer delivered to the U.S. Navy in October 1950 and later sold commercially as the ERA 1101 and UNIVAC 1101 .
The 1980s saw the minicomputer age plateau as PCs were introduced. Manufacturers such as IBM, DEC and Hewlett-Packard continued to manufacture 14-inch hard drive systems as industry demanded higher storage; one such drive is the 1980 2.52 GB IBM 3380. But it was clear that smaller Winchester storage systems were eclipsing large platter hard drives.