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= STORAGE DEVICES = Instructions to upload your contribution: 1. Click on EDIT (top right tab) 2. Write your name in brackets (for example [Maria Jose Mora]) 3. Write a title with the name of your component 4. Copy the information you wrote in your word document 5. Upload no more than three pictures from the ones saved in the hub. 6. Write all the websites you used for your research. 7. __Don't forget to Save your Work!__ [bart marcks caroles geon hiran van lounan van russales van esch]

**__ Cds and DVDs __**

DVDs are a way you can install something on the computer for example you can by computer games at a store the games are put on a disc to install it on your computer to do that you put the disk in your computer DVDs drive then wait for a little while then the program opens for you to install if it does not come you have to go to my computer and the program should be there if not you computer is to old or to knew for the disk some the disk has the same problems some times if this happens you have to try another computer to put it on. You also can use DVDs to install things for work you can also install things from the computer on a DVD so there are a lot of things you can do with a DVD without it you would have to put everything on a computer or take information on another computer with a flash drive so DVDs are very helpfull.

[connor gibbons]

** Flash Drives ** Uses: Flash drives are used to store information, music, games and anything else from a computer. Once you have something on the flash drive you can take it out and put it into another computer, the information gets downloaded. Whenever you go on that computer the information will be there or you can keep it on the flash drive.

Definition: a flash drive can come in many shapes and sizes. They store information in them for you.

What is a flash drive? : a flash looks small but it stores a lot of information inside it. So you can walk around with it in your pocket!

What does it do? : A flash drive can store information that you download from the computer, they can come up to 64 GB and higher, some are as small as 1MG though! You can connect the flash drive through the USB port. The USB is the small silver thing on the end of the flash drive. [Ezekiel (Zeke) Schuurs] = Hard drives  = Most people are amazed when they discover they can store hundreds of CDs worth of music on an iPod digital music player no bigger than a pack of cards. An iPod is not much more than a hard drive : an incredibly efficient computer memory device that uses simple magnetism to store vast amounts of information. Hard drives were invented over 50 years ago and have been used in personal computers since the mid-1980s. The microprocessor in your computer is the bit that does all the "thinking" and calculating—but it's the hard drive that gives your computer its prodigious memory and lets you store digital photos, music files, and text documents. How does it work? Let's take a closer look!

How to store information with magnetism
The science of magnetism is complex. But if you've ever fooled around with a magnet and some nails, you'll know that the technology—the science in action—is quite simple. Iron nails start off unmagnetized but, if you rub a magnet back and forth over them, you can make them magnetic so they stick to one another. Magnetism has some simple, practical uses. For example, junkyards use electromagnets (huge magnets that can be switched on and off using electricity) to pick up and move around piles of metal scrap. Magnetism has another very important use. Suppose you need to leave a message for a friend and all you have is a magnet and an unmagnetized iron nail. Suppose the message is a very simple one: either you will see your friend later that day or not. You could arrange with your friend that you will drop a nail through their letterbox. If the nail is magnetized, it means you will see them later; if the nail is unmagnetized, you won't. Your friend gets in from school and finds a nail on the doormat. They take it to the kitchen table and try to pick up a paperclip. If the clip attaches to the magnet, it must be magnetized—and it must mean you plan to see them later. It's a pretty weird way to leave a message for someone, but it illustrates something very important: magnetism can be used to store information.

If your computer has a 20 gigabyte (GB) hard drive, or you have a 20 GB iPod or MP3 player, it's a bit like a box containing 1.6 million million microsopically small iron nails, each of which can store one tiny piece of information called a bit. A bit is a binary digit—either a number zero or a number one. In computers, numbers are stored not as decimal (base-10) but as patterns of binary digits instead. For example, the decimal number 382 is stored as the binary number 101111110. Letters and other characters can also be stored as binary numbers. even more of a miracle of miniaturization! Thus, computers store a capital letter A as the decimal number 65 or the binary number 1000001. Suppose you want to store the number 1000001 in your computer in that big box of iron nails. You need to find a row of seven unused nails. You magnetize the first one (to store a 1), leave the next five demagnetized (to store five zeros), and magnetize the last one (to store a 1). = What are the parts in a hard drive? = A hard drive has only a few basic parts. There are one or more shiny silver platters where information is stored magnetically, there's an arm mechanism that moves a tiny magnet called a read-write head back and forth over the platters to record or store information, and there's an electronic circuit to control everything and act as a link between the hard drive and the rest of your computer. After a hard-drive crash last year, I was left with an old drive that no longer worked. I took a peek inside, and here's what I found...


 * 1) Actuator (compact electric motor that moves the read-write arm).
 * 2) Read-write arm swings read-write head back and forth across platter.
 * 3) Central spindle allows platter to rotate at high speed.
 * 4) Magnetic platter stores information in binary form.
 * 5) Plug connections link hard drive to circuit board in personal computer.
 * 6) Read-write head is a tiny magnet on the end of the read-write arm.
 * 7) Circuit board on underside controls the flow of data to and from the platter.
 * 8) Flexible connector carries data from circuit board to read-write head and platter.
 * 9) Small spindle allows read-write arm to swing across platter.



Source: http://www.explainthatstuff.com/harddrive.html