What Is Secondary Storage? Simplifying The Concept!

Let’s be honest, how many of us ever tried to look into the anatomy of a computer? I think, there might be only a small fraction of extremely passionate individuals who would have ever done that. See It’s one of the reasons, most individuals get clueless when they come across computer-related terminologies.

No, I will not be performing a postmortem on a computer in this post. Instead, I will shed light on the Secondary Storage of a computer in the shortest possible way.

Table Of Contents

What Is Secondary Storage?
What Are The Uses Of Secondary Storage In Computers?
Advantages Of Secondary Storage
Disadvantages Of Secondary Storage
Types Of Secondary Storage
Frequently Asked Questions
Wrap Up

Also called Auxilary Storage, it comes second in the hierarchy of storage mediums used by a computer. All thanks to the third consecutive Storage-related post, you might assume that the Errorbook community is celebrating Storage Week which is not the case at all.

Moving ahead, It’s time for you to unload all the misconceptions about computer Storage mediums from your mind. This post is going to let you make a clear distinction between Primary and Secondary Storage mediums. Considering the variation in terms of different devices, Secondary Storage is more diverse than Primary Storage.

What Is Secondary Storage?

Secondary Storage medium comes packed with several benefits for the computer. Unlike Primary Storage which offers low-storage capacity, Secondary Storage allows the computer to store large amounts of data such as media files, games, applications, and programs. Minus a few of the things above and the worth of the computer would go down. So, storing any large file is one of the few uses of Secondary Storage on a computer.

Although discussed earlier, it is good to remind you of another use of Secondary Storage. Primary Storage offers no data restoration after the computer shutdown. Here is where Secondary Storage plays a crucial part. Contrary to Primary Storage, It allows permanent data storage to use later.

What Are The Uses Of Secondary Storage In Computers?

Secondary Storage medium comes packed with several benefits for the computer. Unlike Primary Storage which offers low-storage capacity, Secondary Storage allows the computer to store large amounts of data such as media files, games, applications, and programs. Minus a few of the things above and the worth of the computer would go down. So, storing any type of big file is one of the few use of Secondary Storage on a computer.

Advantages Of Secondary Storage

There are a few positive points of Secondary Storage that make it worth using to store and process the data. Firstly, the Secondary Storage devices are cheap. You don’t have to pay more than the supposedly cost of a Secondary Storage device. Secondary Storage is a safer and permanent solution to data-storage-related issues. Lastly, Secondary Storage enables a data backup option. If you unexpectedly lose the data, the backup can help you recover the data.

Disadvantages Of Secondary Storage

Like Primary Storage, the Secondary Storage medium also has a drawback. This drawback doesn’t significantly affect computer performance but is important enough to be talked about. It’s the speed of Secondary Storage that I am talking about. Comparatively, the Secondary Storage medium is pathetically slower than Primary Storage. This makes the computer take a lot of time to process the data and transfer it from one location to the other. From this perspective, slower data processing speed is why Primary Storage is called the main memory of the computer system.

Types Of Secondary Storage

Fundamentally, there are three types of Secondary Storage. Each type of Secondary Storage consists of a few storage devices which are mentioned in the table below.

Optical Storage	Blue-ray discs, CDs, and DVDs fall into a specific category of Secondary Storage
Solid State Storage	This type of Secondary Storage consists of USBs Memory Cards, and Solid State Drives. It’s considered the most expensive type of Secondary storage
Magnetic Storage	Hard Disk Drive and Floppy Disk are part of the third type of Secondary Storage

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Secondary Storage temporary?

Secondary Storage is the permanent data storing facility in the computer. Data stored in Secondary Storage can’t be affected by the loss of power or any other reason. In Secondary Storage, the only way to lose the data is to delete it. Hence, for permanent storage, it is the safest medium.

What type of Secondary Storage uses laser technology?

Every Secondary Storage uses a unique technological medium to function. When we talk of Secondary Storage that uses laser technology to function, Optical Storage is what is referred to. It uses laser technology to read and write the data. The Optical Storage devices that use laser technology are CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs.

What Secondary Storage device has the maximum capacity?

While Secondary Storage Devices offer to store large data, they significantly differ from each other in terms of capacity. In this case, a Hard Disk Drive comes on top of the list of devices with maximum data-saving capacity. For a general-purpose computer, an average-sized Hard Disk Drive could provide space of 1TB. If you need additional space, you can go for a bigger number. This could be 2TB, 3TB, or even 4TB of Hard Disk Drive. The more you go up, the more the price increases.

Wrap Up

There are many questions bothering me about the future of a few types of Secondary Storage. The first and foremost question is about the Hard Disk Drive which has been challenged by the rise of extremely fast Solid State Drives. According to self-proclaimed PC experts, it is just a matter of time before Solid State Drives would outrun Hard Disk Drives in near future. Taking the demand for blasting devices into account, this could prove to be true. If that’s the case, we might have to say goodbye to the decades-old computer partner with pain.

Since these predictions are subject to the expansion of Solid State Drives at the current rate, let’s not stick to them. But let’s be sure of one thing, with the rapid technological advancement, we might see the Secondary Storage medium getting more complex and bigger than ever.