Types of Optical Storage

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Examples of Optical Storage

There are three main types of optical storage in use today, although their use is declining:

Compact Disk (CD)

CDs are the original optical media standard.
A single CD can store around 700 MB of data.
CDs are very cheap to produce.

Digital Versatile Disk (DVD)

DVDs are often used to store games or standard-definition movies for home viewing.
A single DVD can store around 4.7 GB of data.

Blu-Ray Disks (BD)

Blu-Ray disks are often used to store high definition movies or games.
A single Blu-Ray disk can store around 25 GB of data.

Types of Optical Disk

Each of the three optical media standards can come in any of the following forms:

Read-Only Memory (ROM)

A CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, or BD-ROM is a disk which can be read only.
The manufacturer writes the initial data, and this cannot be changed.
This is often used in content distribution so that people cannot accidentally overwrite the content.

Write-Once (R)

A CD-R, DVD-R, or BD-R is a disk which can be written once by the user at home.
Once the user has written data to the disk, they cannot overwrite it.

Re-writable (RW)

A CD-RW, DVD-RW, or BD-RW is a disk which can be overwritten whenever the user would like to.
These are often used for backups which might need to be updated in the future.

1Components of a Computer

1.1Structure & Function of the Processor

1.1.1Structure of the CPU

1.1.2Fetch, Decode, Execute Cycle

1.1.3Factors Affecting CPU Performance

1.1.4CPU Architecture

1.2Types of Processors

1.2.1CISC & RISC

1.2.2Multicore & Parallel Cores

1.3Input, Output & Storage

1.3.1Computer Systems

1.3.2Magnetic Storage

1.3.3Optical Storage

1.3.4Types of Optical Storage

1.3.5Types of Memory

1.3.6Flash Memory

1.3.7Virtual Memory

2Software & Software Development

3Exchanging Data

4Data Types, Data Structures & Algorithms

4.1Data Types

4.1.1Data Types

4.1.2Arrays & Strings

4.1.3Representing Numbers

4.1.4Binary Arithmetic

4.1.5Hexadecimal

4.1.6Converting Binary Numbers

4.1.7Floating Points in Binary

4.1.8Floating Point Arithmetic

4.1.9Bitwise Manipulation

4.1.10Character Sets

4.2Data Structures

4.2.1Arrays, Linked Lists & Queues

4.2.2Graphs, Hash Tables & Stacks

4.2.3Trees

4.3Boolean Algebra

4.3.1Computational Logic

4.3.2Boolean Logic

4.3.3Karnaugh Maps

4.3.4Boolean Identities

4.3.5Flip Flops & Adder Circuits

5Legal, Moral, Cultural & Ethical Issues

5.1Computing Related Legislation

5.1.1Data Protection Act (1998)

5.1.2Computer Misuse Act (1990)

5.1.3Copyright Designs and Patents Act (1988)

5.1.4Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000)

5.2Moral & Ethical Issues

5.2.1Online Activity Tracking

5.2.2Censorship

5.2.3Cultural Issues

5.2.4Environmental Issues

5.2.5Layout, Colour Paradigms & Character Sets

6Elements of Computational Thinking

6.1Thinking Abstractly

6.1.1Abstraction

6.2Thinking Procedurally

6.2.1Decomposition

6.3Thinking Logically

6.3.1Pseudocode & Flow Diagrams

7Problem Solving & Programming

7.1Programming Techniques

7.1.1Programming Fundamentals

7.1.2Modularity

7.2Programming Construction

7.2.1Integrated Development Environments

7.2.2Testing

8Algorithms

8.1Algorithms

8.1.1Interpreting, Correcting & Completing Algorithm

8.1.2Sort Algorithms

8.1.3Insertion & Merge Sort

8.1.4Search Algorithms

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