Notes on Tertiary Memory

Tertiary memory is also known as tertiary storage. Tertiary memory comes below secondary storage. Tertiary storage is a system that holds a robotic function mechanism. A robotic arm will mount by inserting or connecting, or dismounting offline and removable mass storage media into storage devices, meaning mounting and unmounting of mass storage. Before use, this data is stored in secondary storage. The biggest advantage of tertiary memory is no involvement of humans, which means it can function automatically. Tertiary memory includes high-capacity data and can have many removable media. These media are not stored in drives but rather on shelves designated for these purposes.

Notes on Tertiary memory/storage

Tertiary storage is a comprehensive computer storage system that acts very slowly. Due to its slow process, it is used to archive data that we do not access. Tertiary memory is mainly used for storing very large data which can be accessed without any interference from humans. To read the data and information from tertiary memory, the first thing is to consult from a specific database about which information is in which disc. After that, a robotic function arm is used to fetch the specific medium and then placed into a drive. After completing the work or when the computer reads all the information, the robotic arm will dismount or keep them back in its place.

Examples of tertiary storage are Magnetic tape, optical disc, and optical tapes. These devices are composed of fixed drivers and have their own removable media units. If any media is there in storage drives, the old media is ejected, and new media is added to the drive.

Tertiary storage devices are very cost-effective, and they offer storage capacities with the help of robotic arms, which act as removable tapes or disks. It is named tertiary because it is the computer’s third-level storage system from which the data is fetched. Tertiary devices are cheap but are quite slow.

Magnetic tape:

Magnetic tapes have long been a crucial part of storage systems, but data access is slow compared to others. To load a tape, human intervention is required, so accessing a single piece of information can take up to hours to process. So the data is sent to the tertiary sector only if the data were either too large or are not used later. Most organisations use magnetic tapes to save data files. Tapes used to store data are quite similar to those used before to store music.

The data on these tapes are stored sequentially, so one should start from the very beginning to check. Magnetic tapes have a low-cost average because they can save many binary numbers, digits, and frames on an inch of magnetic tape. A magnetic tape is a cheap option to back up your data. Data can be transferred from different machines easily and store a large volume of data. The access time is very high in magnetic tape because one has to start from the very initial data to read it. The data is not in human-readable form, so manual encoding can not be done. It can be damaged easily due to dust or carelessness.

Optical Disks:

It is a storage disk that uses a laser beam to read data and also write it with the help of optical storage techniques.CD, DVD, and blue-ray disks fall under optical disks. The main advantages of optical disks are offline data distribution and archiving data for a long time. There are three recording types in optical disks: read-only, recordable and rewritable. It is safe to use as it can only be accessed through a laser beam, so it can not contain malicious hardware or viruses.

Advances in tertiary storage:

1. The increase in tracks and bits per inch has increased the tape capacity.
2. The tapes are now being relatively cheap and are available readily.
3. Magnetic tape and optical disks are more inexpensive than magnetic disks, so the low cost makes it economical to build storage sectors.
4. Optical disk technology is becoming more popular and convenient to distribute data and information.
5. Robotic function devices are used to access information, so human intervention is minimally required making response time extremely predictable.

It does mounting and unmounting of mass storage holding robotic functions.

Conclusion:

Tertiary storage or tertiary memory is the third storage level just below the secondary storage. It involves mounting and unmounting removable mass storage with the help to function automatically. The main use of tertiary storage is to archive data that no longer needs to be accessed regularly. These are mainly used for storing large data, which can be accessed without human operators and can function automatically. It is generally used for backing up data. Tertiary storage devices are very cost-effective, and they offer storage capacities with the help of robotic arms, which act as removable tapes or disks.