Departamento de Tecnología1st year ESO – U2: Hardware and software – Storage of data

UNIT2: HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

STORAGE OF DATA

Storage

If you refer to the storage of something, you mean that it is kept in a special place until it is needed

(Advanced Dictionary of American English. Collins)

For example, the hard disk in a computer is a device used to store files.

Bit

In computing, a bit is the smallest unit of information that it is held in a computer’s memory. It is either 1 or 0. Several bits form a byte.

(Advanced Dictionary of American English. Collins)

Short for binary digit, the smallest unit of information on a machine. A single bit can hold only one of two values: 0 or 1. More meaningful information is obtained by combining consecutive bits into larger units. For example, a byte is composed of 8 consecutive bits.

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Byte

In computing, a byte is a unit of storage approximately equivalent to one printed character.

(Advanced Dictionary of American English. Collins)

Abbreviation for binaryterm, a unit of storage capable of holding a single character. On almost all modern computers, a byte is equal to 8 bits. Large amounts of memory are indicated in terms of kilobytes (1,024 bytes), megabytes (1,048,576 bytes), and gigabytes (1,073,741,824 bytes).

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Notice that:

-1 byte = 8 bits

- 1 kilobyte = 1024 bytes

- 1 megabyte = 1024 kilobytes = 1024·1024 bytes = 1,048,576 bytes

- 1 gigabyte = 1024 megabytes = 1024·1024·1024 bytes = 1,073,741,824 bytes

Activity 4: The picture shows the detailed view of a folder in Windows XP. Answer the following questions.

  1. According to the information in the picture, what are the short forms for kilobyte, megabyte and gigabyte?
  2. What is the size of the first 5 folders in the picture expressed in bits?
  3. Calculate the size in megabytes of those files that are larger than 1024 kilobytes.
  4. Calculate the size in gigabytes of those files that are larger than 1024 megabytes.
  5. What is the free space in disk C, expressed in megabytes, kilobytes, bytes and bits?
  6. Which part of a computer is “Windows XP”?

Activity 4: The picture shows the details view of a folder in Mac OS Panther. Answer the following questions.

  1. We can see information about files and folders in the picture. What is the difference between a file and a folder?
  2. What is the size of the largest and the smallest file/folder, expressed in kilobytes?
  3. The size of the folder that is highlighted in blue is 872 MB. Calculate how many bytes are there in 872 MB? Why is your result different from the information in the picture (in the column File Size in Bytes)?
  4. Which part of a computer is “MAC OS Panther”?

Activity 5: Comparing the two pictures above you can see some differences between the windows in Windows XP and MAC OS Panther.

  1. What is the difference in the icons to maximize or minimize the windows?
  2. The scroll bar is the control you use to go up/down (or left/right) in the window. It can be seen in the right side of both pictures. What is the difference in the scroll bar in them?

Activity 6: Answer the following questions about the devices used to store data:

  1. Find out 5 devices that you can use to store files in a computer.
  2. What do we mean with capacity when we say “The typical capacity of a hard disk is 500 GB”?
  3. Can a hard disk be larger than 1024 GB? What is the storage unit we use in that case?
  4. Find out the typical capacities of all the storage devices identified in the question a).

Activity 7: According to the capacities of the storage devices that you found out in question 7.c, choose which of them you could use to storage the following documents:

  1. A movie with a size of 2 GB.
  2. A letter written using a word processor, with a size of 19,456 bytes.
  3. A song in an mp3 player, with a size of 7.3 MB.
  4. A game with a size of 16 KB.
  5. A picture you have taken with your camera, with a size of 1.22 MB.