Compare primary storage and secondary storage and discuss the most important characteristics of secondary storage.

Discuss hard disks, including density, platters, tracks, sectors, cylinders, head crashes, internal, external, and performance enhancements.

Discuss optical discs, including pits, lands, CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray, and hi def.

Discuss solid-state storage, including solid-state drives, flash memory, and USB drives.

Discuss cloud computing and cloud storage.

Describe mass storage devices, including enterprise storage systems, file servers, network attached storage, RAID systems, organizational cloud storage, and storage area network systems.

Would you be comfortable if your attorney stored digital copies of your legal documents in the cloud? What about your doctor or psychologist? Why or why not?

Who should be responsible if files stored on the cloud are stolen or viewed by hackers or unethical employees? Who would suffer the consequences? Defend your position.

Should laws be created that require cloud storage companies to operate ethically and to assume responsibility for security and therefore are not subject confidentiality of stored data? Why or why not?

Cloud computers are not necessarily located within the borders of the United States and therefore not be subject to the same regulations as U.S.-based computers. Do you think that all U.S. companies should be required to keep their cloud servers in this country? Defend your response.

How do you feel about storing personal and confidential information in the cloud? Do you currently do it? Why or why not?

Why do you suppose that less energy is required for solid-state drives?

Why are not all hard drives being replaced with solid-state drives?

Do you think hard drives will become obsolete in the near future? Why or why not?

Would you be willing to pay more for a solid-state drive? If so, how much? If not, why not?