Engin 112 Homework 11 Please submit your answers on Gradescope via the course page on Canvas You can write your answers electronically or by hand and submit a scan or photo Question 1 Electronic storage properties Examine an electronic device you have such as a laptop smartphone digital camera etc identify one memory or data storage component in these devices and comment on them according to the following criteria a Describe the particular memory or storage component Flash storage is a type of non volatile memory commonly found in smartphones USB drives and SSDs It allows for fast data reading and writing while maintaining data integrity even when power is removed b Is it volatile or non volatile Flash storage is non volatile meaning it retains data even when the device is powered off c Does it use a sequential or a random access approach Flash storage employs random access This allows data to be read or written at arbitrary locations without the need to read through preceding data unlike sequential access in magnetic tape d Does it use floating gate transistors or regular transistors or neither Flash storage uses floating gate transistors These transistors can hold an electrical charge representing stored bits of data 1s and 0s This capability is what makes the memory non volatile Question 2 Hard drive vs solid state drive a When you get a hard drive you may see a lot of numbers on the specification sheets Two of them may read for example 500 GB 7200 rpm What do these numbers mean 500 GB refers to the hard drive s storage capacity meaning it can store up to 500 gigabytes of data 7200 rpm indicates the rotational speed of the hard drive s platters in revolutions per minute A higher rpm typically means faster data access and transfer speeds b Solid state drives SSD are replacing magnetic hard drives Compare these two mediums in the following aspects 1 mechanism 2 volatility and 3 durability Explain your answers briefly HDDs rely on mechanical movement for data access making them slower and susceptible to physical damage SSDs use electronic circuits to store and retrieve data resulting in faster speeds and higher reliability HDDs and SSDs are non volatile retaining data even when the power is off The lack of moving parts in SSDs makes them more resilient to physical shocks vibrations and wear while HDDs are vulnerable to mechanical failure over time Question 3 Cost of memory Hard drives come in many different sizes and flavors For consistency we will choose most of the drives from the same manufacturer Western Digital Western Digital has four classes of 3 5 inch drives Red Blue Black and Gold They also sell 2 5 inch solid state drives SSDs Most drive classes have capacities of 1 2 4 and 6 TB Use the Internet to find costs for the four sizes of the five different types of data storage Add class for finding the most inexpensive option for SSD from any manufacturer Combine the different sizes and costs into a table as shown in the figure below Once complete make a plot of the cost per GB of memory vs drive capacity for the six different classes of data storage The horizontal axis should be the drive capacity and the vertical axis should be GB You should have a different line for each class of data storage i e black blue etc Label the horizontal and vertical axes as drive capacity TB and cost per GB GB and have a title as your name Data Storage cost comparison 2023 You should also use the labeling feature legend of your graphing program to specify which lines are associated with which drive class When plotting make sure that the horizontal axis is linearly spaced which is to say that the spatial distance between 1 and 4 TB should be four times larger than the spatial distance between 1 and 2 TB For your assignment turn in a copy of the table as above and a copy of the plot You should also provide a written comparison of the different classes of drives the advantages disadvantages for each and what you think is the reason for the differences in cost Try to be as quantitative as possible e g Ccache size reliability transfer rates power consumption etc In your table and or description it is okay to specify ranges e g The sustained transfer rate is 144 210 MB s This doesn t have to be lengthy just enough to provide the key details for each type of drive and what the dominant reasons would be for the cost differences Based on the graphical analysis that you have done above determine if there is an inflection point of hard drive capacity where for a given class of hard drive the price per GB is the least expensive This inflection point is typically the level where mainstream technology development is currently at For the graphical analysis from above determine the inflection point for the hard drives Does it seem that there is a similar inflection point for solid state drives Black drives are performance oriented offering high transfer rates and larger cache sizes ideal for gaming or heavy workloads However they are more expensive and consume more power dropping costs from 0 083 GB at 1TB to 0 022 GB at 6TB Blue drives are cost effective for everyday use offering balanced performance and reliability with costs decreasing significantly from 0 054 GB to 0 017 GB as capacity increases Red drives optimized for NAS systems prioritize reliability and low power consumption making them suitable for 24 7 operation with costs reducing from 0 065 GB at 1TB to 0 028 GB at 6TB Gold drives cater to enterprise environments featuring enhanced durability and high workload support but come with premium pricing dropping from 0 085 GB at 1TB to 0 034 GB at 6TB SSD Blue drives provide faster read write speeds and better durability but are pricier with costs starting at 0 108 GB at 1TB and dropping to 0 057 GB at 4TB with no data for 6TB models Other SSDs offer competitive pricing and solid performance but may lack the reliability of branded options with costs hovering around 0 043 GB to 0 045 GB for 1TB to 4TB capacities This variability reflects differences in technology durability and production economies For HDDs the inflection point occurs around 4TB where the cost per GB is significantly reduced across most drive classes For instance Blue drives drop to 0 018 GB and Black drives to 0 035 GB representing the optimal balance between capacity and price This capacity reflects current mainstream production efficiencies In contrast SSDs exhibit a steady decrease in cost per GB but show a plateau or lack of data