External memory which is sometimes called backing store or secondary memory, allows the permanent storage of large quantities

of data. Some method of magnetic recording on magnetic disks or tapes is most commonly used. More recently optical methods which rely upon marks etched by a laser beam on the surface of a disc (CD-ROM) have become popular, although they remain more expensive than magnetic media. The capacity of external memory is high, usually measured in hundreds of megabytes or even in gigabytes (thousand million bytes) at present. External memory has the important property that the information stored is not lost when the computer is switched off. External memory or auxiliary storage is not directly accessible by the CPU. The computer usually uses its input/output channels to access external memory and transfers the desired data using intermediate area (buffer- is a region of a physical memory storage used to temporarily hold data while it is being moved from one place to another. Typically, the data is stored in a buffer as it is retrieved from an input device (such as a mouse) or just before it is sent to an output device (such as speakers).. the data stored in a data buffer, are stored on a physical storage media. A majority of buffers are implemented in software, which typically use the faster RAM to store temporary data, due to the much faster access time compared with Hard Disk Drives) in internal memory. External Memory Interface is a bus protocol for communication from an integrated circuit, such as a microprocessor, to an external memory device located on a circuit board. The memory is referred to as external because it is not contained within the internal circuitry of the integrated circuit and thus is externally located on the circuit board. It is important to note that the CPU can only directly access data that is in main memory. To process data that resides in external memory the CPU must first transfer it to main memory. Accessing external memory to find the appropriate data is slow (milliseconds) in relation to CPU speeds but the rate of transfer of data to main memory is reasonably fast once it has been located.

In modern computers, hard disk drives are usually used as secondary storage. The time taken to access a given byte of information stored on a hard disk is typically milliseconds. The time taken to access a given byte of information stored in random access memory is nanoseconds. This illustrates the significant access-time difference which distinguishes solid-state memory from rotating magnetic storage devices: hard disks are typically about a million times slower than memory. Rotating optical storage devices, such as CD and DVDdrives, have even longer access times. The external memory is often formatted according to a file system ( file system is a mean to organize data expected to be retained after a program terminates by providing procedures to store, retrieve and update data, as well as manage the available space on the device(s) which contain it.) format, which provides the abstraction necessary to organize data into files and directories, providing also additional information (called metadata) describing the owner of a certain file, the access time, the access permissions, and other information.

Some other examples of secondary storage technologies are: flash memory (e.g. USB flash drives ), floppy disks, magnetic tape, paper tape, punched cards, standalone RAM disks, and Iome` ga Zip drives. FLASH MEMORY- Flash memory is a non-volatile (computer memory that can retain the stored information even when not powered.) computer storage chip that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. It was invented by Dr. Fujio Masuoka while working for Toshiba circa 1980. According to Toshiba, the name "flash" was suggested by his colleague, because the erasure process of the memory contents reminded him of the flash of a camera. Dr. Masuoka presented the invention at 1984 International Electron Devices Meeting. Flash memory stores information in an array of memory cells made from floating-gate transistors. In traditional single-level cell (SLC- memory element capable of storing more than a single bit of information.) devices, each cell stores only one bit of information. Some newer flash memory, known as multi-level cell (MLCmemory element capable of storing more than a single bit of information.) devices, can store more than one bit per cell by choosing between multiple levels of electrical charge to apply to the floating gates of its cells. USB flash drive is a data storage device that consists of flash memory with an integrated Universal Serial Bus (USB- is an industry standard developed in the mid-1990s that defines the cables, connectors and protocols used for connection, communication and power supply between computers and electronic devices.) interface. As of September 2011 drives of 256 gigabytes are available, and storage capacities as large as 2 terabytes are planned. Until approximately 2005, most desktop and laptop computers were supplied with floppy disk drives, but floppy disk drives have been abandoned in favor of USB ports. Trek Technology and IBM began selling the first USB flash drives commercially in 2000. A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles. They are read and written by a floppy disk drive (FDD) .Floppy disks, initially as 8-inch (200 mm) media and later in 5.25-inch (133 mm) and 3.5-inch (89 mm) sizes, were a ubiquitous form of data storage and exchange from the mid-1970s well into the first decade of the 21st century. The earliest floppy disks, developed in the late 1960s, were 8 inches (200 mm) in diameter; they became commercially available in 1971.In 1976, Shugart Associates introduced the first 5 14-inch FDD. By the end of the 1980s, the 5 14-inch disks had been superseded by the 3 12-inch disks. By the mid-1990s, the 5 14-inch drives had virtually disappeared as the 3 12-inch disk became the predominant floppy disk. The advantages of the 3 12-inch disk were its smaller size and its plastic case which provided better protection from dirt and other environmental risks. Magnetic tape data storage uses digital recording on to magnetic tape (Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording, made of a thin magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic. It was developed in Germany, based on magnetic wire recording. Devices that record and play back audio and video using magnetic tape are tape recorders and video tape recorders) to store digital information. The device that performs actual writing or

reading of data is a tape drive nitially, magnetic tape for data storage was wound on large (10.5 in/26.67 cm) reels. This defacto standard for large computer systems persisted through the late 1980s. Tape cartridges ( frequently means a single reel of tape in a plastic enclosure.) and cassettes were available as early as the mid 1970s and were frequently used with small computer systems. Punched tape or paper tape is an obsolete form of data storage, consisting of a long strip of paper in which holes are punched to store data. It was widely used during much of the twentieth century for teleprinter communication, for input to computers of the 1950s and 1960s, and later as a storage medium for minicomputers and CNC (computer numerical control) machine tools. Data was represented by the presence or absence of a hole in a particular location. Tapes originally had five rows of holes for data. Later tapes had 6, 7 and 8 rows. A row of narrower sprocket holes that were always punched served to feed the tape, typically with a wheel with radial teeth called a sprocket wheel. During the last third of the 20th century, the U.S. National Security Agency used punched paper tape to distribute cryptographic keys. The 8-level paper tapes were distributed under strict accounting controls. The three biggest problems with paper tape were: Reliability. It was common practice to follow each mechanical copying of a tape with a manual hole by hole comparison. Rewinding the tape was difficult and prone to problems. Great care was needed to avoid tearing the tape. Some systems used fanfold paper tape rather than rolled paper tape. In these systems, no rewinding was necessary nor were any fancy supply reel, takeup reel, or tension arm mechanisms required; the tape merely fed from the supply tank through the reader to the takeup tank, refolding itself back into exactly the same form as when it was fed into the reader. Low information density. Datasets much larger than a few dozen kilobytes are impractical to handle in paper tape format.

A punched card, punch card, IBM card, or Hollerith card is a piece of stiff paper that contains digital information represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Now an obsolete recording medium, punched cards were widely used throughout the 19th century for controlling textile looms ( device used to weave cloth.) and in the late 19th and early 20th century for operating fairground organs(A fairground organ is a pipe organ designed for use in a commercial public fairground setting to provide loud music to accompany fairground rides and attractions). Punched cards were first used around 1725 Falcon as a more robust form of the perforated paper rolls then in use for controlling textile looms in France. From the 1900s, into the 1950s, punched cards were the primary medium for data entry, data storage, and processing in institutional computing. The Zip drive is a medium-capacity removable disk storage system that was introduced by Iomega in late 1994. Originally, Zip disks launched with capacities of 100 MB, but later versions increased this to first 250 MB and then 750 MB. The format became the most popular of the super-floppy type products which filled a

niche in the late 1990s portable storage market. However it was never popular enough to replace the 3.5-inch floppy disk nor could ever match the storage size available on rewritable CDs and later rewritable DVDs. In computing, an optical disc drive (ODD) is a disk drive that uses laser light or electromagnetic waves near the light spectrum as part of the process of reading or writing data to or from optical discs. The first laser disk, demonstrated in 1972, was the Laservision 12-inch video disk. A DVD- Digital Versatile Disc, Digital Video Disc (abbreviation for digital video disc) is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions. The Compact Disc (also known as a CD) is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage (CD-ROM), write-once audio and data storage (CD-R), rewritable media (CD-RW), Video Compact Discs (VCD), Super Video Compact Discs (SVCD), PhotoCD, PictureCD, CD-i, and Enhanced CD. Audio CDs and audio CD players have been commercially available since October 1982. The Compact Disc is a spin-off of Laserdisc technology. Sony first publicly demonstrated an optical digital audio disc in September 1976. In September 1978 they demonstrated an optical digital audio disc with a 150 minute playing time Blu-ray Disc (official abbreviation BD) is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB (23.31 GiB) per layer. The first Blu-ray Disc prototypes were unveiled in October 2000, and the first prototype player was released in April 2003 in Japan. Afterwards, it continued to be developed until its official release in June 2006.The name Blu-ray Disc refers to the blue laser used to read the disc, which allows information to be stored at a greater density than is possible with the longer-wavelength red laser used for DVDs.

A hard disk drive (HDD; also hard drive or hard disk)is a nonvolatile, random access digital magnetic data storage device. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the platters. Introduced by IBM in 1956, hard disk drives have decreased in cost and physical size over the years while dramatically increasing in capacity. Sequential changes in the direction of magnetization represent patterns of binary data bits. The data are read from the disk by detecting the transitions in magnetization and decoding the originally written data. For reliable storage of data, the recording material needs to resist selfdemagnetization, which occurs when the magnetic domains repel each other. Magnetic domains written too densely together to a weakly magnetizable material will degrade over time due to physical rotation of one or more domains to cancel out these forces. A hard disc is a flat, circular oxide-coated disc which

rotates continuously. Information is recorded on the disc by magnetising spots of the oxide coating on concentric circular tracks. An access arm in the disc drive positions a read/write head over the appropriate track to read and write data from and to the track. This means that before accessing or modifying data the read/write head must be positioned over the correct track. This time is called the seek time and is measured in milliseconds. There is also a small delay waiting for the appropriate section of the track to rotate under the head. This latency is much smaller than the seek time. Once the correct section of the track is under the head, successive bytes of information can be transferred to the main memory at rates of several megabytes per second. This discrepancy between the speed of access to the first byte required, and subsequent bytes on the same track means that it is not economic to transfer small numbers of bytes. Transfers are usually of blocks of several hundred bytes or even more. Notice that the access time to data stored in secondary storage will depend on its location. A memory card or flash card is an electronic flash memory data storage device used for storing digital information. They are commonly used in many electronic devices, including digital cameras, mobile phones, laptop computers, MP3 players, and video game consoles. They are small, re-recordable, and able to retain data without power.