Media And Storage

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Write/Right mechanics

Session 2
AM Zeus-Brown
 Your findings

 Quoting out of context and not looking

at other papers
 Referencing (see dissc)
◦ A lot of secondary reference's
 Level of reading/research

Discussion from Self Study

Storage examination
◦ You had been tasked to examine each of the
device’s in turn make detailed notes and
diagram

◦ Any problems
Time management?
Forensic awareness

LAB Session Discussion

Read/Write mechanics for:
◦ Optical
◦ Solid state
◦ Magnetic

Topics For Today

A little bit of history
What’s is inside
◦ The Platters

◦ The Spindle and Spindle Motor

◦ The Read/Write Heads

◦ The Head Actuator

If you haven’t all ready make sure you watch the

videos on black board as they will help you
understand

Hard drive
Name the parts
Name the parts
Name the parts
Name the parts
Name the parts
Name the parts
 Data is stored on the surface of a platter in sectors and
tracks.
 Tracks are concentric circles, and sectors are pie-shaped

wedges on a track, like this:

Yellow = Track
Blue = Sector
Sectors contain a fixed number of bytes
Sectors are grouped at either drive or OS
level

Low level format writes tracks and

sectors, start & end point
High level Format write the file storage
structures (file allocation table)

Tracks and sectors

 The drive channel
electronics receive data
in binary form from the
computer and converts
them into a current in
the head coil. The
current in the coil
reverses at each 1 and
remains the same at
each 0.

 This current interaction

with the media results in
magnetization of the
media, which direction
depends on the current
direction in the coil.

Magnetic Read/Write
 MR Reading Inductive Writing
Head head

Shields poles

Coils

MR
Sensor

Hard Disk Mechanics

 The big differences
1. .
Tape has a thin strip of plastic on to which the recording coating
is applied
HDD is layered on high-precision aluminium or glass disc
2. .
Tape has a slow seek speed Fast forward etc. This can take 5
minutes plus with a large tape
HDD can move to any part of the surface almost instantly
3. .
Tape drive read/write heads touch the tape (can cause damage
over time)
HDD read/write head flies across surface never touching it
4. .
Tape head moves at about 2” (5.08cm) per second
HDD can spin the platter under the head at 3,000” per second
(about 170mph or 272khp) these speed are increasing

Cassette Tape vs. Hard Disk

 Optical
CD/DVD/
HD Disc/Blueray Disc
Spot (Beam) diameter
◦ wavelength of light / Numerical Aperture

Depth of focus
◦ wavelength of light / (Numerical Aperture)2
For the current optical storage systems, the depth of focus is
about 1 mm.

Optical Read/Write
 44,100 samples/channel/second x 2 bytes/sample x
2 channels x 74 minutes x 60 seconds/minute =
783,216,000 bytes

CD Cross Section

CD
 Spiralfrom centre out towards
the edge
 Tracks are very small
approximately .5 microns wide

CD
 0.5 microns

1.6 microns

0.5 microns
Reading the bumps
Optical drive
 Spinning CD

Digital
Signal

LASER
Optical Pickup

Laser Focus
 500 rpm

450 rpm

Tracking
Motor
74 min
350 rpm
Disc Motor
Laser

Date____________
Label___________
0 rpm

The CD player spins the disc while moving the laser assembly
outward from the middle. To keep the laser scanning the data
track at a constant speed, the player must slow the disc as
the assembly moves outward.
 STAMPED CD

Stamped/pre-pressed CD
 Label

Aluminium
Dye
Darken = 0
Leave translucent =1

Polycarbonate Plastic

Write
Writing CD

CD-R
A CD-R doesn't have the same bumps
and lands as a conventional CD.
Instead, the disc has a dye layer
underneath a smooth, reflective
surface.
On a blank CD-R disc, the dye layer is
completely translucent, so all light
reflects.
The write laser darkens the spots
where the bumps would be in a
conventional CD, forming non-
reflecting areas.

What's it doing
CD drive
CD drive
 Label

Aluminium
Phase
change
Darken = 0 compound
Leave translucent =1 Dielectric
layers

Polycarbonate Plastic

CD-RW
Write
Erasing
Writing
Erase data
CD
data
Heat then rapid cool = write
Heat and controlled cool = erase

Phase-change Compounds
Solid State/flash Memory
MOSFET
(Meta-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-
Effect Transistor)
 few examples of Flash memory:
◦ Your computer's BIOS chip
◦ CompactFlash (most often found in digital cameras)
◦ SmartMedia (most often found in digital cameras)
◦ Memory Stick (most often found in digital cameras)
◦ PCMCIA Type I and Type II memory cards (used as solid-state
disks in laptops)
◦ Memory cards for video game consoles

 Use’s an electric field to switch

Between 1 and 0
 When erasing I erases blocks
Or the entire chip rather than
one byte like EEPROM does.

Flash memory
1. USB connector
2. USB mass storage controller
device
3. Test points
4. Flash memory chip
5. Crystal oscillator
6. LED
7. Write-protect switch
8. Space for second flash
memory chip
Internals of a typical flash drive
(Saitek brand USB1.1 pictured)
Inside a USB
System administration
Computer repair
Application carriers
To boot OS
Windows vista ReadyBoost
Personal data transport
Audio players
Music storage
In arcades

Common uses
Strengths
◦ Flash drives are nearly impervious to the
scratches and dust
◦ USB drives will work in most places
◦ Don’t need additional device drivers
◦ Can be used as a boot device

Strengths and weaknesses

Flash
drives can only sustain a limited
number of write and erase cycles
◦ Mid range drives support several thousand
cycles
◦ This should be considered when using flash
drives to run applications

Weaknesses
NOR memories (DDR, the memory inside your pc)
NAND memories (USB memory stick)
◦ NOR and NAND flash differ in two important ways:
the connections of the individual memory cells are different
the interface provided for reading and writing the memory is
different
◦ (NOR allows random-access for reading, NAND allows only block
access)
  floating-gate transistor to act like an electron gun.
Word line

Control Gate
Thin Oxide layer -> (-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)
Floating Gate
1
0
Bit line

Drain Source
Current Flow
(-)(-)(-)(-)(-) Negatively charged electrons

Fowler-Nordheim tunneling
Some drives feature Encryption
◦ Generally using full disk encryption below the
file system

Flash drives can be extremely small

proving a problem for companies and data
leaks
Its also possible to run malicious software
such as rootkits or packet sniffers

Security
Interfaces
Self Study
ACW1
 IDE
◦ Integrated Drive Electronics
 EIDE
◦ Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics
 UDMA
◦ Ultra Direct Memory Access
 ATA
◦ Advanced Technology Attachment
 ATAPI
◦ ATA Packet Interface
 SCSI
◦ Small Computer Systems Interface
 Firewire
◦ IEEE1394
 USB
◦ Universal Serial Bus
 Parallel
 Serial
 FC-AL
◦ Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop

Interface’s
 Report on one of the interfaces
◦ Presenting your findings next week in this
session

 Decide which interface would be best for

the following and why
1. Portable storage device.
2. Large (800gig+)Hard disk drive
3. External hard disk drive
◦ Presenting your findings next week in this
session

Discussion from Self Study