Comparing and choosing secondary storage

• Criteria to consider when choosing a secondary storage device

  • Capacity
  • Speed
  • Cost
  • Portability
  • Compatibility
• Capacity


  How much storage does it provide?
• Speed


  How quick is it to access files?
• Cost


  How much does it cost?
• Portability


  Is it important that the disk can be transported?
• Compatibility


  Compatibility is always an issue. If the device is designed to be installed inside a system case, it must be the right size for the slot(s) available and it must have the right kind of connector.
• External devices are usually connected by USB, but other connections are available
• Optical storage devices (CD/DVD) that were commonly found on computers ten years ago are rarely seen in new devices
• If you store your photos on a CD (for example), will you have a means of accessing them in a few years time?
• Reliability


  Any storage mechanism can fail, and data can be corrupted
• Mean time to failure (MTTF)

  Disk reliability is usually measured in this
• Failures cannot be predicted and will be distributed over the entire time period; this means that theoretically, your hard disk could fail at any moment
• Backing up important data is imperative, and cloud storage provides an easy, managed solution for most users