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Secondary Storage or Auxiliary Memory

Additional cheaper storage device are used to serve as a back up for storing the information that is not currently used by CPU but may be required in future. These memory devices are known as secondary storage or Auxiliary memory and it is used when large amount of data have to be stored.

The central processing unit (CPU), the input devices and the output device are the 3 essential components of a computer system. The primary storage is a part of the CPU and is found physically inside the computer. It is often not practical to build a very large size primary storage to meet all the storage requirements of the system to handle present day business, scientific and technical applications. That is where secondary storage come in usually, it is physically located outside the computer. It is also sometime referred to as Auxiliary storage or external storage though it is not an essential component of a computer system in theoretical terms. The secondary storage is almost indispensable if one really want to fully exploit the computer potential. An attempt to achieve the desired storage capacity in the primary itself will result in an enormous cost and size. As far as computer access to the stored data is concerned, primary storage due to its semiconductor nature is much faster than any of the storage media used for secondary storage. The secondary storage on the other hand, is economical as far as cost per unit data stored is concerned in addition to having an almost unlimited storage capacity. It is also safe getting tampered with by unauthorized persons.

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