Hard drive and removable storage media. Drive history

Graduation writing assignment

Examination paper

Issued to student of group 35 Andrey Alekseevich Romanov

Profession: “Master of Digital Information Processing”

Topic: “Writing information to removable media”

I. Descriptive part

Introduction.

1. Basic terms and concepts

2. Review of storage media, their advantages and disadvantages, principles of operation, characteristics.

4. Selecting a program for recording information to media

Conclusion.

Bibliography.

Applications.

II. Practical task

1. Create instructions for recording information on the selected removable storage medium

2. Create a job test

3. Create a presentation about your work

The task was issued by the foreman O.S. Crack

The assignment was given to student A.A. Romanov

Ministry of Education and Science of the Udmurt Republic

Autonomous professional educational institution

Udmurt Republic

"College of Radio Electronics and Information Technologies"

Final written qualifying work

by profession "Master of Digital Information Processing"

student of group No. 35

Subject : “Writing information to removable media”

Izhevsk, 2015

Introduction

Storage medium(information carrier) - any material object or environment containing (carrying) information that can retain information entered into/on it in its structure for a sufficiently long time. Initially, the amount of information placed on the media was small (from 128 MB to 5.2 GB). Gradually, much more information began to be placed on the media (up to 3Tb).

The main storage media: floppy disks (floppy disks), hard disk drives (hard drives), CD, DVD (including Blu-ray), flash-memory (flash drives, memory cards).

CDs and DVDs have become a part of our lives. It’s hard to imagine where we would store gigabytes of music, movies and photographs if someone had not come up with these round records with a mirror surface.

At the moment, this topic is relevant, because modern man is not able to live without information. But information has this peculiarity - it must be stored somewhere. There are quite a lot of information storage systems now. It can be stored on magnetic media, it can be stored on optical and magneto-optical media. But in our time, a person also faces a rather important problem - the transfer of information from one place to another, as well as the equally important problem of storing information, and as a consequence, the reliability of the media. This is why technologies related to information storage have developed so quickly.

The purpose of this final qualifying written work is:

1. Create instructions for recording information onto the selected removable storage medium.

Based on this goal, the following tasks are set:

1. Review removable media, identify their advantages and disadvantages

2. Select a program for recording to removable media

Basic terms and definitions

Information- information perceived by a person or special devices as a reflection of the facts of the material world in the process of communication.

Recording information is a way of recording information on a tangible medium.

Removable storage media- a storage medium intended for its autonomous storage and use independent of the place of recording.

Media overview

FMD (Floppy Disk Media) or Floppy Disk(eng. Floppy Disk Drive) is a portable storage medium used for repeated recording and storage of data, which is a flexible magnetic disk placed in a protective plastic case (a disk with a diameter of 3.5″ has a more rigid case than a disk with a diameter of 5.25″, whereas the 8″ diameter disc is enclosed in a very flexible case) coated with a ferromagnetic layer. Floppy disks typically have a write-protect feature that allows read-only access to the data. Floppy disks were widely used from the 1970s until the end of the 1990s, giving way to more capacious and convenient CDs and flash drives at the beginning of the 21st century.

Advantages:

1. Huge recording density with small media sizes.

2. Low power consumption compared to similar high-capacity media.

3. High reliability and stability.

Flaws:

1. Small recording capacity (in fact, even one song cannot be recorded on a disc).

2. Unreliability of information storage; the floppy disk is demagnetized under the influence of large magnetic fields.

HDD (Hard Magnetic Disk Media) or Winchester or Hard Disk(English HDD - Hard Disc Drive) is an information storage device based on the principle of magnetic recording. It is the main data storage device in most computers. It is combined with a storage device, a drive and an electronics unit and (in personal computers in the vast majority of cases) is usually installed inside the computer system unit, but there are also those connected externally.

Information is recorded on hard (aluminum or glass) plates coated with a layer of ferromagnetic material, most often chromium dioxide. HDD uses one or more plates on one axis. In operating mode, the reading heads do not touch the surface of the plates due to the layer of incoming air flow that forms near the surface during rapid rotation. The distance between the head and the disk is several nanometers (about 10 nm in modern disks), and the absence of mechanical contact ensures a long service life of the device. When the disks do not rotate, the heads are located at the spindle or outside the disk in a safe area, where their abnormal contact with the surface of the disks is excluded.

The principle of operation of hard drives is similar to the operation of tape recorders. The working surface of the disk moves relative to the read head (for example, in the form of an inductor with a gap in the magnetic circuit). When an alternating electric current is supplied (during recording) to the head coil, the resulting alternating magnetic field from the head gap affects the ferromagnet of the disk surface and changes the direction of the domain magnetization vector depending on the signal strength. During reading, the movement of domains at the head gap leads to a change in the magnetic flux in the head magnetic circuit, which leads to the appearance of an alternating electrical signal in the coil due to the effect of electromagnetic induction.

Recently, the magnetoresistive effect has been used for reading and magnetoresistive heads are used in disks. In them, a change in the magnetic field leads to a change in resistance, depending on the change in the magnetic field strength. Such heads make it possible to increase the likelihood of reliable information reading (especially at high information recording densities).

Advantages:

1. Allow you to write and read information many times.

2. When you turn off the computer, the information left on the hard drive is saved.

3. Large amount of stored information.

4. High reliability of data storage. The mean time between failures is about 300,000 hours, i.e. about 30 years.

Flaws:

1. It is impossible to carry it, since it is permanently attached to the system unit.

2. Relatively low performance, especially compared to RAM.

Recording methods

There are currently several recording methods:

· Longitudinal recording method.

· Perpendicular recording method.

· Thermal magnetic recording method.

Compact disc or CD(English Compact Disc) - an optical storage medium in the form of a plastic disk with a hole in the center, the process of recording and reading information is carried out using a laser. A further development of CDs was DVDs (more on them later).

The CD was originally created to store audio recordings in digital form, but later became widely used as a medium for storing any data in binary form.

CD-ROM(English: Compact Disc Read-Only Memory, read: “sidi-rom”) - a type of CD with data recorded on them that is read-only (read-only memory - read-only memory). CD-ROM is a modified version of CD-DA (disk for storing audio recordings), allowing you to store other digital data on it (physically it is no different from the first one, only the format of the recorded data has been changed). Later, versions were developed with the ability to both write once (CD-R) and rewrite multiple times (CD-RW) information on a disk. A further development of CD-ROM drives was DVD-ROM drives.

CD-ROMs- a popular and cheapest means for distributing software, computer games, multimedia and other data. CD-ROM (and later DVD-ROM) became the main medium for transferring information between computers, displacing the floppy disk from this role (it is now giving way to more promising solid-state media).

The CD-ROM recording format also provides for recording mixed content information on one disc - simultaneously both computer data (files, software, readable only on a computer), and audio recordings (played on a regular audio CD player), video, texts and pictures. Such discs, depending on the order of the data, are called Enhanced CDs or Mixed-Mode CDs.

CD-R(Compact Disc-Recordable) is a type of compact disc (CD) developed by Philips and Sony for recording information once. CD-R supports all the features of the Red Book standard and, in addition, allows you to record data.

A regular CD-R is a thin disk made of transparent plastic (polycarbonate) 1.2 mm thick, 120 mm in diameter (standard), weight 16-18 g. or 80mm (mini). The capacity of a standard CD-R is 74 minutes of audio or 650MB of data. However, at the moment the standard CD-R capacity can be considered 702MB of data or 79 minutes 59 seconds and 74 frames.

The polycarbonate disk has a spiral track to guide the laser beam when writing and reading information. On the spiral track side, the disc is covered with a recording layer consisting of a very thin layer of organic dye, then a reflective layer of silver, its alloy or gold. This layer is already covered with a protective photopolymerizable varnish and cured with ultraviolet radiation. And already on this protective layer various inscriptions are applied with paint.

A CD-R always has a service track with servo marks ATIP - Absolute Time In Pregroove - absolute time in the service track. This service track is needed for the tracking system, which keeps the laser beam while recording on the track and monitors the recording speed. In addition to synchronization functions, the service track also contains information about the manufacturer of this disc, information about the material of the recording layer, the length of the track to be recorded, etc. The service track is not destroyed when data is written to the disk, and many copy protection systems use it to to distinguish the original from the copy.

CD-RW(English Compact Disc-ReWritable, Rewritable CD) - a type of compact disc (CD), developed in 1997 for repeated recording of information

CD-RW is a logical development of CD-R, however, unlike it, it allows data to be rewritten many times. This format was introduced in 1997 and during its development was called CD-Erasable (CD-E, Compact Disc Erasable). CD-RW is similar in many ways to CD-R, but its recording layer is made of a special chalcogenide alloy, which, when heated above its melting point, transforms from a crystalline state of aggregation to an amorphous one.

DVD(eng. Digital Versatile (Video) Disc - digital multi-purpose (video) disk) - an information carrier made in the form of a disk, the size of a CD, but with a denser working surface structure, which allows you to store and read a larger amount of information in due to the use of a laser with a shorter wavelength and a lens with a larger numerical aperture.

The first discs and DVD players appeared in November 1996 in Japan and March 1997 in the United States.

In the early 1990s, two standards were being developed for high-density optical media. One of them was called Multimedia Compact Disc (MMCD) and was developed by Philips and Sony, the second - Super Disc - was supported by 8 large corporations, including Toshiba and Time Warner. Later, the efforts of the standards setters were united under the leadership of IBM, which did not want a repeat of the format war, as was the case with the VHS and Betamax cassette standards in the 1970s. The DVD was officially announced in September 1995, when the first version of the DVD specifications was published. Changes and additions to the specifications are made by the DVD Forum (formerly called the DVD Consortium), whose members are 10 founding companies and more than 220 individuals.

The DVD-R(W) recording standard was developed in 1997 by the Japanese company Pioneer and a group of companies that joined it and were included in the DVD Forum as the official specification for recordable (and subsequently rewritable) discs.

DVD-RW discs, created on the basis of DVD-R, initially had the problem of incompatibility of older drives with these new discs (the problem was the difference in the optical layer responsible for “storing” information, which had less (compared to write-once media) and stamped discs) reflectivity). Subsequently, this problem was almost completely resolved, although previously it was because of this that old DVD drives could not normally play new rewritable discs.

An alternative format was created, called DVD+R, which had a different reflective layer material and special markings that made it easier to position the head - the main difference between such “plus” discs and “minus” ones. With this, DVD+RW discs are able to record (over the existing one) in several steps, as in a conventional video cassette recorder, eliminating the tedious preliminary erasing of all content (for DVD-RW, you first need to completely erase the existing recording).

In addition, when using rewritable “plus” disks, the number of errors decreases and the correctness of recording increases, as a result of which a bad sector can be easily overwritten rather than erasing or recording the entire disk again. Therefore, if you intend to actively use the dubbing and recording function, it is better to choose a recorder that supports the “plus” format (which most models are now capable of).

DVD-Video

To play DVDs with video, you need a DVD optical drive and an MPEG-2 decoder (that is, either a household DVD player with a hardware decoder, or a computer DVD drive and a software player with a decoder installed). DVD movies are compressed using the MPEG-2 algorithm for video and various (often multi-channel) formats for audio. Compressed video bitrate varies from 2000 to 9800 Kbps, often variable (VBR). The standard size of a video frame in the PAL standard is 720×576 pixels, and in the NTSC standard - 720×480 pixels.

The audio data in a DVD movie can be in PCM, DTS, MPEG, or Dolby Digital (AC-3) format. In countries that use the NTSC standard, all DVD movies must contain a PCM or AC-3 soundtrack, and all NTSC players must support these formats. Thus, any standard disc can be played on any standard hardware.

Blu-ray Disc, BD(English blue ray - blue ray and disc - disk; writing blu instead of blue is intentional) - an optical media format used for high-density recording and storage of digital data, including high-definition video. The Blu-ray standard was jointly developed by the BDA consortium. The first prototype of the new carrier was presented in October 2000. The modern version was presented at the international consumer electronics exhibition Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which was held in January 2006. The commercial launch of the Blu-ray format took place in the spring of 2006.

Blu-ray gets its name from the use of a short-wavelength (405 nm) "blue" (technically blue-violet) laser for recording and reading. The letter "e" was deliberately omitted from the word "blue" to allow for trademark registration, since the expression "blue ray" is a commonly used expression and cannot be registered as a trademark.

From the advent of the format in 2006 until the beginning of 2008, Blu-ray had a serious competitor - the alternative format HD DVD. Within two years, many of the major film studios that had originally supported HD DVD gradually switched to Blu-ray. Warner Brothers, the last company to release its products in both formats, phased out HD DVD in January 2008. On February 19 of the same year, Toshiba, the creator of the format, stopped development in the field of HD DVD.

Flash memory

Flash memory(English flash memory) - a type of solid-state semiconductor non-volatile rewritable memory (EPPROM).

It can be read as many times as desired (within the data storage period, typically 10–100 years), but it can be written to only a limited number of times (maximum - about a million cycles). Flash memory is common and can withstand about 100 thousand rewrite cycles, much more than a floppy disk or CD-RW can withstand. It does not contain moving parts, so, unlike hard drives, it is more reliable and compact.

Due to its compactness, low cost and low power consumption, flash memory is widely used in digital portable devices - photo and video cameras, voice recorders, MP3 players, PDAs, mobile phones, as well as smartphones and communicators. In addition, it is used to store embedded software in various devices (routers, PBXs, printers, scanners, modems), and various controllers. Also recently, USB flash drives (flash drive, USB drive, USB disk) have become widespread, practically replacing floppy disks and CDs.

At the end of 2008, the main drawback that prevents flash memory-based devices from displacing hard drives from the market is the high price/volume ratio, which is 2–3 times higher than that of hard drives. In this regard, the volumes of flash drives are not so large, but work is underway in these directions. The technological process becomes cheaper and competition intensifies. Many companies have already announced the release of SSD drives with a capacity of 256 GB or more.

This type of flash memory is based on a NOR element because in a floating gate transistor, a low gate voltage denotes a one.

The transistor has two gates: control and floating. The latter is completely isolated and is capable of retaining electrons for up to 10 years. The cell also has a drain and a source. When programming with voltage, an electric field is created at the control gate and a tunneling effect occurs. Some electrons tunnel through the insulator layer and reach the floating gate. The charge on the floating gate changes the "width" of the drain-source channel and its conductivity, which is used for reading.

Programming and reading cells have very different power consumption: flash memory devices consume quite a lot of current when writing, while the energy consumption is low when reading.

To erase information, a high negative voltage is applied to the control gate, and electrons from the floating gate move (tunnel) to the source.

In the NOR architecture, each transistor must be connected to an individual contact, which increases the size of the circuit. This problem is solved using NAND architecture.

The NAND type is based on the NAND element. The operating principle is the same; it differs from the NOR type only in the placement of the cells and their contacts. As a result, it is no longer necessary to make an individual contact to each cell, so the size and cost of the NAND chip can be significantly reduced. Also writing and erasing is faster. However, this architecture does not allow access to an arbitrary cell.

NAND and NOR architectures now exist in parallel and do not compete with each other, since they are used in different areas of data storage.

Types of memory cards

· CF(Compact Flash)

· MMC(Multimedia Card)

· RS-MMC(Reduced Size Multimedia Card)

· DV-RS-MMC(Dual Voltage Reduced Size Multimedia Card)

· MMC-micro

· SD Card(Secure Digital Card)

· SDHC(SD High Capacity, SD high capacity)

· MiniSD(Mini Secure Digital Card)

· MicroSD(Micro Secure Digital Card)

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Lesson #66. What is removable storage

Removable storage media are designed to store your data outside of your computer. They are very convenient to use to transfer your files from one computer to another. I'm sure you are well aware of such removable media.

The most popular removable storage media currently are flash drives, flash cards, removable hard drives and optical drives (CD and DVD). I think it’s impossible to use a computer and not know anything about them.

Let's take a closer look at each of the listed devices and learn how to work with them.
But before we begin, I want to talk about some parameters of removable media, which primarily affect their cost:

1. Volume– this is the main parameter of any storage medium and not just removable ones. To measure volume, the same units are used as to measure the volume of data (information). We know that all information on a computer is stored in the form of files. In order to somehow measure the amount of information, a special unit of measurement was introduced, which was called - byte.There are also smaller units - bits, And 1 byte = 8 bits. What are bits and why 1 byte equals 8 bits, we will not disassemble. This is completely optional information for the average user. But I will still give an example that will give an idea of ​​what it is byte. Volume of information in 1 byte is one letter in a text document.B 1 byte, as you understand, contains a small amount of information (just one character), so larger units are usually used.

1 kilobyte (KB) = 1024 bytes;
1 megabyte (MB) = 1024 kilobytes;
1 gigabyte (GB) = 1024 megabytes;
1 terabyte (TB) = 1024 gigabytes.

The prefixes “kilo”, “mega”, etc. are borrowed from ordinary life, but unlike, for example, 1 kilometer, which contains 1000 meters, 1 kilobyte contains 1024 bytes. We don’t need to know why this happened. The volume of information is a very arbitrary value and in ordinary life everyone has long rounded 1024 to 1000.

So, the volume of the storage medium is its main indicator that affects its cost. The larger the storage medium, the higher its cost.

1. Read (write) speed information from the media (to the media). Since the volume of removable media is growing every year, this indicator becomes important. Of course, if you purchase a flash drive to transfer your text documents from computer to computer, then speed in this case is practically unimportant, since text files usually have a small size. But if you need to transfer a large number of video or music files to a flash drive, then the recording speed plays an important role, and the time it takes for the files to be transferred to the flash drive will directly depend on it. The same applies to flash cards that are used in digital cameras. The faster the write speed of such a flash card, the faster the photo is written to it and the faster the camera is ready to take the next frame. Let's understand the concept of data transfer speed, since it is used very often and novice users have problems with it. the basic unit of measurement for the speed of information transfer in the computer world was adopted bits per second, also denoted - bps (English bits per second, bps). The speed of information transfer can be indicated not only as a characteristic of information carriers, but is also used in networks, including the speed of connecting to the Internet is indicated specifically in bits per second.

We already know that bit, this is the minimum amount of information and mostly use a large value - byte, equal to eight bits. Therefore, when they tell you that the speed of your Internet connection is 1 Mbps, then this DOES NOT MEAN that you will download 1 Megabyte of information in a second. To translate Megabits V Megabytes we need to divide the speed of your connection by 8 and in our case we get 0.125 MB/s, which is 125 kilobytes per second. The following designation is often found:

Kilobits per second – Kb/s
Kilobytes per second – KB/s

Pay attention to whether the letter “B” is capitalized or lowercase in this designation.

1. Device size. This parameter is very conditional and is not suitable for all types of devices, but basically the trend is this: the smaller the device, the higher its price

Lesson #67. Optical discs

CD disks (Fig. 197) or they are also called compact discs ( CD comes from English Compact Disc) have almost gone out of use, although for a long time they were the main medium for transferring information between computers. Their volume was usually about 700 MB. To read such discs, a special device is used - a CD drive (Fig. 198).

Rice. 197. Optical disc	Rice. 198. CD optical drive

Data from the disk is read using a laser beam. There are drives that allow you to only read data from CDs, and there are also so-called writing drives, which allow you to write to disk.

Blank discs intended for recording are called in computer slang blank. There are two main groups of CDs (discs):

• CD-R– information can be written to such a disc only once;
• CD-RW– discs intended for repeated recording. Information on such discs can be erased and recorded again.

Usually the read/write speed is indicated on a CD drive, for example, 24X. This is the speed at which the drive can read data from the disk or write information to the disk. The speed is indicated in multiples of 150 Kb/s (i.e. 153,600 bps). For example, a 24-speed drive provides a maximum CD read (or write) speed of 24 × 150 = 3600 KB/s. This means that, for example, when copying information from a CD to your computer, the drive will transfer 450 kilobytes of data in one second. If you are copying a movie that is 650 Megabytes in size, then it will take about 24 minutes to copy it to your computer. This is such simple arithmetic.

Over time, CDs were replaced by DVDs.

DVD (DVD, English) Digital Versatile Disc- digital multi-purpose disk; also English Digital Video Disc- digital video disc) - has the same size as a compact disc, but uses different technology to significantly increase the amount of information it can hold. To read DVDs, DVD drives are used, which can also read CDs. But CD drives are unable to read DVDs.

Currently, the most popular DVD discs are DVD-5 and DVD-9 formats. DVD-5 discs can store 4.37 GB (Gigabytes) of information, and DVD-9 discs can store 7.95 GB.

The speed unit (1x) of DVD read/write is 1,385,000 bps (i.e. about 1352 KB/s = 1.32 MB/s), which is approximately equivalent to 9th speed (9x) CD read/write, which is equal to 9 × 150 = 1350 Kb/s. Thus, a 16-speed drive provides a DVD read (or write) speed of 16 × 1.32 = 21.12 MB/s.

Just like CDs, DVDs are divided into groups:

• DVD-R– intended for one-time recording;
• DVD-RW– rewritable discs.

Also, historically, another division of DVD discs into “plus” discs appeared (designated DVD+R And DVD+RW) and “negative” (indicated DVD-R And DVD-RW).

“Plus” blanks appeared later and are an improved version of the “minus” blanks. The main difference between “plus” and “minus” blanks that is significant for the end user is the following. When overwriting DVD-RW the disk must first delete information from it, but when overwriting DVD+RW There is no need to delete information from the disk; the drive is able to write new information over the old one. But to work with “plus” discs, you need to have a DVD writer that supports this format (almost all modern DVD drives support this format).

In pursuit of increasing the volume of storage media, manufacturers are constantly creating something new. This is how another format appeared - Blu-ray Disc, BD(blue-ray, English) blue ray- blue beam). Disc format Blu-ray They have the same dimensions as CD and DVD discs (120 mm), but differ significantly in capacity. By technology Blu-ray discs are made that have one or two layers for recording data. Single-layer disks can hold up to 25GB of information, and double-layer disks can hold up to 50GB. There are disks for one-time recording - BD-R, and for reusable recording – BD-RE.

Of course, to read and write such discs you need a special drive that supports Blu-ray technology. Recording speed has also increased significantly. The Blu-ray read/write speed unit (1x) is 36 Mbps, which allows you to write 25GB of information to a single-layer disc at 12 speed in about 8 minutes.

Most computers nowadays come with optical disc drives. In order to install the disk into the drive, you need to press the button located on it (Fig. 199).

Once the disc is placed in the tray, press lightly enough to close the tray. After this, the information recorded on the disk will become available and can be viewed, for example, using the program Conductor.

Lesson #68. Flash drives

Flash drives or simply flash drives- These are the most popular and widespread removable storage media at present. In computer stores you can find a huge selection of flash drives. They differ in color, shape and case material, and you can always choose a flash drive to suit your taste (Fig. 202). But still, the main parameter of a flash drive is its size, i.e. the amount of information that can be recorded on it.

On sale you will find flash drives with capacities ranging from hundreds of megabytes to several tens and even hundreds of gigabytes. Moreover, the difference in price may not be proportional to the difference in volume, so before buying a flash drive, compare the prices of devices of different sizes and choose the optimal price-volume combination for yourself.

The flash drive is connected to the computer through the so-called universal connector - USB(Universal Serial Bus– universal serial bus, fig. 203).

This connector has become very popular and with its help a huge number of different devices are connected to the computer, from flash drives to printers, scanners, cameras and video cameras.

Usually on a computer you can find several USB connectors (2, 4 and even 8). They are located on the back of the computer. But since these connectors became very popular, manufacturers of computer cases began to place them on the front or side wall of the computer, which made it possible to quickly access the connectors and connect devices without unnecessary movements. Typically, these connectors are marked with a special icon (Fig. 204).

Laptops usually have two or three USB connectors (Fig. 203).

The USB connector, unlike other computer connectors, allows you to connect and disconnect devices while the computer is running. This means that you can turn off the device, for example, remove the flash drive, without turning off the computer, but there are some operating nuances and we will talk about them a little later.

Lesson #69. external HDs

Along with flash drives, they are also used external HDs(Fig. 205). They are larger in size than flash drives, but the amount of information stored on them is much larger. The volumes of modern removable hard drives amount to hundreds of gigabytes and reach several terabytes. Accordingly, the price of a hard drive will depend on its capacity. In addition, the price of a hard drive is also affected by its geometric size - the smaller the hard drive, the more money you will have to pay for it, as a rule.

Hard drives are often abbreviated as HDD- from English Hard Drive Disk(HDD). In colloquial speech you may also hear the name “winchester” or “screw”.

External hard drives are connected to the computer through a connector already familiar to us. USB(Fig. 206).

Lesson #70. Memory cards

Memory cards or flash cards- these are compact electronic storage devices used to store information (Fig. 207). Modern memory cards are made on the basis of flash memory, i.e. on the same principle as flash drives.

If you have a digital camera, then it will definitely have one of the memory cards installed in it, shown in Figure 207. The type of memory that is installed in a specific camera model is determined by the manufacturer.
The currently most popular SD cards are Secure Digital Memory Card(Fig. 208). These cards have several standard sizes and are used mainly in portable devices (cameras, cell phones, PDAs, etc.).
Memory cards are used precisely as information storage devices, i.e. The camera records the photographs taken on them, and in a pocket computer (PDA) you can use the card as the hard drive of your computer, i.e. save your files to the card or install programs on it.
When working with portable devices, the need inevitably arises to connect the device to a computer in order to transfer information to or from the device. It’s the same with a digital camera – sooner or later there is a need to transfer photos to a computer. How to do this?

Rice. 209. Card reader

It is very convenient to work with flash memory cards through a device called card reader, from English card reader(Fig. 209).
Typically, a card reader is a small box with various connectors, and you can simultaneously connect memory cards of various formats to your computer.
The card reader itself is connected to the computer via a USB connector.
On sale you can find card readers of various configurations and sizes, but when purchasing a card reader, pay attention to what types of flash memory cards it supports. There are card readers that support, for example, only cards Secure Digital. If you want to purchase a universal card reader, then look for the inscription “ all in one" or " all in 1" This means that this device works with all types of memory.

Lesson #71. How to download photos from a camera

If you have a digital camera but no card reader, you can use the following method to transfer photos.

1. The camera always comes with a cable for connecting to the USB connector. Connect the camera to the computer with this cable.
2. Turn on the camera.
3. The operating system will try to independently determine what kind of device was connected to the computer.

If you have an Internet connection, then most likely you will just need to wait about a minute until Windows will detect your camera and install the necessary driver.

Driver is a program that acts as a kind of intermediary between the operating system and the device. The driver “explains” to the operating system what kind of device is installed and how to work with it.

If you don't have an Internet connection, you will most likely need to install the driver yourself. The camera always comes with a disk, which usually contains the driver for the device. Read the instructions for the camera and install the necessary programs in accordance with the description.

1. After installing the driver, a dialog box will appear (Fig. 210):

1. The easiest option is to select the item View files. A program window will open Conductor, in which you can work with photos on the flash card of your camera in the same way as on a computer. Those. you can simply copy the files and paste them into the desired folder on your computer.

The second way is to use the item Import images and videos. A window will appear Importing images and videos(Fig. 211).

Rice. 211. Importing images and videos

In this window, you can configure image import settings by selecting the appropriate item. A window will open Importing parameters(Fig. 212). In this window you can configure the folder into which photos will be copied from the camera. By default, photos are imported into the folder Images, which is in Libraries. Next, you can set the name of the folder that will be created when importing photos from the camera.

Look at Figure 212. The following settings are now selected - photos will be imported (copied) from the camera to the library Images, while in the folder Images A new folder will be created and given a name in the form of today's date.

Rice. 212. Importing parameters

Once you have completed your import settings, click OK and in the window Importing images and videos click the button Import(Fig. 211). Your photos will be copied to your computer.

Lesson #72. We work with removable media

When working with removable storage media, there are nuances that you should know. When we install a disk into an optical disc drive or connect an external storage device (flash drive, removable hard drive or card reader with a memory card) to the computer’s USB connector, then in the operating system Windows autostart is triggered. This means that the operating system automatically detects a new storage medium and, trying to predict our actions, displays a window with a list of operations that we can carry out (Fig. 213 and 214).

You can select an action convenient for you from the list or close the window Autorun and access information from removable storage media through the program Conductor. By the way, point Open folder to view files will just lead to launch Conductor, which will display the contents of the removable storage media.

Window Autorun It may not appear for you. The point is that the opportunity Windows Auto-launch is used by attackers to activate their viruses and malware on your computer. For this reason, some antivirus programs and some programs designed to protect your computer may block Autorun. In this case, access to information located on a removable device can be obtained through the program Conductor.

Let's launch Conductor and display the contents of the folder Computer(Fig. 215). I connected a flash drive to the computer, about two gigabytes in size, and installed the DVD into the optical drive.

In Figure 215 you see that a new section has appeared in the folder Computer which is called Devices with removable media. This section displays the optical drive icon (indicated by the letter E), and a removable disk G- this is my flash drive.
So that I can start working with disk data information ( E And G) I need to enter them by double-clicking with the left mouse button on the corresponding icon of the removable device.

Working with files located on flash devices (flash drives and memory cards) and removable hard drives is no different from working with files on a computer. This means you can copy, move, and delete information from these devices. Just be careful - when deleting information from removable media, it DOES NOT FIT V Cart, and is immediately deleted.

Rice. 215. Displaying removable devices in Explorer

You can only copy or run files located on optical discs. To delete or write information to optical discs, you need to use an additional program, which we will talk about later.

Now let's figure out how to properly remove removable storage media from a computer. There are a few rules here that I adhere to and recommend to you.

If you are working with information located on an optical disc, make sure that no file or program is running from the optical disc before removing the optical disc from the drive. There is nothing wrong if you remove the disk while a file is running from it. The operating system will simply lose contact with this file and ask you to install the disk again. Those. You will not cause any harm to either the disk or the files located on it, you will only lose a little time reinstalling the disk and removing it again after closing the file.

The situation is different with flash drives, memory cards and removable hard drives. If you simply remove a device from its connector, you may damage the information that is on the device, and in some cases, the device itself.

Before removing the device from the computer, you must turn it off. For this purpose in Windows There is a tool called . To access it you need to Notification areas select the appropriate icon (Fig. 216), then left-click on it and a menu will appear (Fig. 217), which will list all the disks available on your computer. From the list you need to select the disk that you want to disconnect, i.e. our flash drive, card reader with memory cards or removable hard drive.

After this, an information message will appear in the Notification Area (Fig. 218):

Homework:

1. If your computer has an optical disc drive, then determine which discs it works with (CD, DVD, Blu-ray). This information is usually located on the drive tray (Fig. 199). If the drive allows you to record discs, then it will have the inscription “RW” or “Recoder” on it.

2. If you have a memory card, for example in a camera, then find out its size and type. You will need this information if you decide to purchase a larger card or card reader.

3. If you don't have a card reader, copy photos from the memory card using Windows(Fig. 210).

4. Connect your flash drive to your computer via a USB connector, run any file from it and try to disconnect it via Safely remove devices and drives(Fig. 216). A warning window should appear (Fig. 219). Then close the file you launched earlier and repeat the action. An information message should appear as in Figure 218.

It is convenient to use external media to store and transfer information from one computer to another. The storage media most often used are optical discs (CD, DVD, Blu-Ray), flash drives (flash drives) and external hard drives. In this article we will analyze the types of external storage media and answer the question “What to store data on?”

Now optical discs are gradually fading into the background, and this is understandable. Optical discs allow you to record relatively small amounts of information. Also, the ease of use of an optical disc leaves much to be desired; moreover, discs can be easily damaged and scratched, which leads to loss of readability of the disc. However, for long-term storage of media information (movies, music), optical discs are suitable like no other external media. All media centers and video players still play optical discs.

Flash drives

Flash drives, or simply “flash drives,” are now in greatest demand among users. Its small size and impressive memory capacity (up to 64GB or more) allow it to be used for various purposes. Most often, flash drives are connected to a computer or media center via a USB port. A distinctive feature of flash drives is their high read and write speed. The flash drive has a plastic case, inside of which an electronic board with a memory chip is placed.

USB flash drives

A type of flash drive includes memory cards, which with a card reader are a full-fledged USB flash drive. The convenience of using such a tandem allows you to store significant amounts of information on various memory cards, which will take up minimal space. In addition, you can always read the memory card of your smartphone or camera.

Flash drives are convenient to use in everyday life - transfer documents, save and copy various files, watch videos and listen to music.

external HDs

External hard drives are technically a hard drive housed in a compact case with a USB adapter and anti-vibration system. As you know, hard drives have impressive amounts of disk space, which, coupled with mobility, makes them very attractive. You can store your entire video and audio collection on an external hard drive. However, an external hard drive requires more power to operate optimally. One USB connector cannot provide full power. This is why external hard drives have a dual USB cable. In terms of dimensions, external hard drives are quite small and can easily fit in a regular pocket.

HDD boxes

There are HDD boxes designed for use as a storage medium with a regular hard drive (HDD). Such boxes are a box with a USB controller to which the simplest hard drives of a desktop computer are connected.

This way, you can easily transfer information directly from your computer's hard drive directly, without additional copying and pasting. This option will be much cheaper than buying an external hard drive, especially if you need to transfer almost the entire partition of the hard drive to another computer.

Floppy disks

Tape drives

Another popular type of high-capacity external data storage is magnetic tape drives. These devices allow large amounts of data to be stored on small magnetic tape cassettes. Tape drives are typically used for applications that store large amounts of information that does not need to be accessed frequently or quickly. An example of such applications would be creating backup copies of programs or data. Backup is a necessary operation for data such as business transactions, accounting records, etc.

In addition to hard magnetic disks, flexible magnetic disks (floppy disks) are used to store information in PCs. A typical floppy disk is a disk made of a material called Mylar, 3.5 inches in diameter, coated with a ferromagnetic material. It is encased in a protective plastic container between two low-friction liners to keep dust and other contaminants out of the 5 disc. Floppy disks are relatively inexpensive and easy to carry and store. In addition, filled discs can be removed from the drive and empty ones inserted.

Like hard drives, floppy disks are divided into tracks and sectors. A typical floppy disk has 40 or 80 tracks on each side, each divided into 8, 9, or 18 sectors. The sector capacity of a floppy disk for PC-compatible systems is 512 bytes.

In most cases, floppy drives are connected to the system board using a 34-conductor flat cable called a ribbon cable. One side of the cable is color coded to indicate the location of pin No. 1. The cable must be connected to the drive connectors and system board so that the labeled side is oriented toward pin No. 1 on both connectors. Typically, up to two drives can be connected to a loop, which the system recognizes as logical drives A: and B:. The drive connected to the end connector of the loop will be designated as.drive A:.

It is useful to consider the fact that many modern systems do not have a floppy drive, and in the future they may disappear altogether.

Removable media includes all of the technologies discussed: floppy disks, CD-R and CD-RW disks, DVD-R and DVD-RW disks, and magnetic tape drives. These also include other types of emerging, equally well-known removable media, including cassette-mounted high-capacity floppy disks (Zip Disks), USB-connected semiconductor disks (chip memory devices configured in such a way that they are recognized by the system as mechanical hard drives), and PC Card drives. PC Card removable media are devices that can contain either miniature hard disk drives with 1.8-inch platters or semiconductor drives.

Many modern PCs are equipped with a memory card reader/writer, usually built into the front panel of the computer. These devices can work with different types of memory modules used in various electronic devices, such as PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant) or digital cameras. This allows digital information stored in such modules, such as audio or video data, to be transferred from the device to a computer for further processing. In Fig. Figure 1.21 shows a front-mounted memory card reader that supports eight types of cards and also has a USB port. As you can see in the figure, support for different memory card standards is provided by several connectors, each for its own type of card.

Rice. 1.21. Memory card reader mounted in the front panel of the computer

Most external storage devices with removable media are connected via standard I/O ports (USB, FireWire, SCSI, Extended Capabilities Port). This way, the operating system's PnP mechanism can detect a new device connected to the system. But most of these devices are non-standard and require the installation of special software (called a driver) provided by the device developer to work with them. But USB solid-state drives automatically load USB drivers and function like a new drive (like an E: drive). And in the case of removable media mounted in PC Card devices, the device itself supports PnP and can be connected and disconnected hot swapping, i.e. without turning off the system power.

Since when the computer is turned off, all information from the RAM disappears, we need a device that could store all our programs and personal information, regardless of whether the computer is turned on or not.

Such a device is a hard drive (HDD, Hard Drive Disk). In colloquial speech you may also hear the name “winchester” or “screw”. The hard drive, like all other devices, is located inside the system unit in a special compartment where it is secured with screws. The hard drive is connected to the motherboard with a special cable called a cable. There are two main connectors on the motherboard for connecting hard drives. More precisely, there are three of them, but one is rarely used in home computers.

Modern motherboards no longer have outdated IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) connectors, but your computer may well have these connectors. Currently, the SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) connector is widely used. Don't let these scary acronyms scare you. This is just a designation of the type of connector, that is, simply put, the “socket” into which the “plug” is plugged.

If you decide to replace your computer's hard drive with a larger one, then you need to know what type of connector is used on your motherboard. You can take the entire system unit with you to the store, and a sales consultant will select hard drive options for you on the spot. Or there is a simpler option - take only the motherboard book with you. It will describe all the connectors, including those for connecting hard drives, and it will not be difficult for the sales consultant to select a hard drive for you.

The capacity of hard drives, like RAM, is measured in bytes, more precisely in megabytes and terabytes. The hard drive stores all your information. These are your photos, movies, music and text documents. Programs and the Windows operating system are also stored as files and folders on your hard drive.

In addition to hard drives, information can be stored for a long time on so-called removable media. From the name it is clear that with the help of removable media you can transfer information from one computer to another. The hard drive in your computer is installed inside the system unit. Although it can be removed, it is still considered non-removable media. But various flash drives or external hard drives connected via a USB connector (we’ll talk about the connector a little later) belong to this class of devices.

Flash drives- This is probably the most popular type of removable storage media at present, but it’s still too early to write off CDs.

01.11.2012