Storage Devices and Interfaces
Storage media types and connections.
Storage devices and interfaces are essential components in computer systems, handling data persistence across various media. Primary storage devices include Hard Disk Drives (HDDs), which use magnetic platters for data storage with good capacity but slower speeds, and Solid State Drives (SSDs), which employ flash memory for faster performance and better reliability with no moving parts. Optical drives like DVD and Blu-ray manage read/write operations on optical media, while tape drives serve primarily for archival backup needs. Flash storage options encompass USB drives and memory cards for portable data transport. These devices connect to systems through several interfaces: SATA (Serial ATA) provides standard connections for internal drives with speeds up to 6 Gbps; NVMe leverages PCIe lanes for ultra-fast SSD performance; USB offers external connectivity with versions ranging from 2.0 to 4.0/Thunderbolt with increasing speeds; Thunderbolt combines DisplayPort and PCIe for high-speed external connections. For enterprise environments, SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) delivers robust performance and reliability. CompTIA A+ expects technicians to understand RAID implementations for redundancy and performance, with common levels including RAID 0 (striping for speed), RAID 1 (mirroring for redundancy), RAID 5 (striping with parity), and RAID 10 (combining striping and mirroring). When installing storage devices, proper consideration of form factors (2.5", 3.5", M.2), interface compatibility, power requirements, and system BIOS/UEFI settings is essential. Technicians must also be familiar with storage management tools like Disk Management in Windows and disk utilities to format, partition, and troubleshoot devices effectively.
Storage devices and interfaces are essential components in computer systems, handling data persistence across various media. Primary storage devices include Hard Disk Drives (HDDs), which use magneti…
Concepts covered: Hard Disk Drives (HDDs), Serial ATA (SATA), Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID), Network Attached Storage (NAS), Secure Digital (SD) Cards, Storage Area Network (SAN), Parallel ATA (PATA), Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe), Small Computer System Interface (SCSI), Solid State Drives (SSDs)
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