operating system

What is an Operating System???

The operating system is the core software component of your computer. It performs many functions and is, in very basic terms, an interface between your computer and the outside world. In the section about hardware, a computer is described as consisting of several component parts including your monitor, keyboard, mouse, and other parts. The operating system provides an interface to these parts using what is referred to as "drivers". This is why sometimes when you install a new printer or other piece of hardware, your system will ask you to install more software called a driver.

What does a driver do???

A driver is a specially written program which understands the operation of the device it interfaces to, such as a printer, video card, sound card or CD ROM drive. It translates commands from the operating system or user into commands understood by the the component computer part it interfaces with. It also translates responses from the component computer part back to responses that can be understood by the operating system, application program, or user. The below diagram gives a graphical depiction of the interfaces between the operating system and the computer component.

secondary storage

Secondary storage technology refers to storage devices and storage media that are not always directly accessible by a computer. This differs from primary storage technology, such as an internal hard drive, which is constantly available.

Examples of secondary storage devices include external hard drives, USB flash drives, and tape drives. These devices must be connected to a computer's external I/O ports in order to be accessed by the system. They may or may not require their own power supply.

Examples of secondary storage media include recordable CDs and DVDs, floppy disks, and removable disks, such as Zip disks and Jaz disks. Each one of these types of media must be inserted into the appropriate drive in order to be read by the computer. While floppy disks and removable disks are rarely used anymore, CDs and DVDs are still a popular way to save and transfer data.

Because secondary storage technology is not always accessible by a computer, it is commonly used for archival and backup purposes. If a computer stops functioning, a secondary storage device may be used to restore a recent backup to a new system. Therefore, if you use a secondary storage device to backup your data, make sure you run frequent backups and test the data on a regular basis.
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primary storage

1) Primary storage, also known as main storage or memory, is the main area in a computer in which data is stored for quick access by the computer's processor. On today's smaller computers, especially personal computers and workstations, the term random access memory (RAM) - or just memory - is used instead of primary or main storage, and the hard disk, diskette, CD, and DVD collectively describe secondary storage or auxiliary storage.
The terms main storage and auxiliary storage originated in the days of the mainframe computer to distinguish the more immediately accessible data storage from storage that required input/output operations. An earlier term for main storage was core in the days when the main data storage contained ferrite cores.

2) Primary storage is sometimes used to mean storage for data that is in active use in contrast to storage that is used for backup purposes. In this usage, primary storage is mainly the secondary storage referred to in meaning 1. (It should be noted that, although these two meanings conflict, the appropriate meaning is usually apparent from the context.)