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Storage Devices and Network Hardware: Question 5

Syllabus 3.3

Multiple choice 1 mark

A freelance photographer pays a monthly subscription so that every finished photo edit is automatically uploaded to a remote data centre run by a storage company, rather than being kept only on the hard disk drive inside her own laptop. She can open any of her edited photos from a different device, as long as it has an internet connection, but during a weekend at a hotel with no working Wi-Fi, she is unable to open the edits she finished earlier that same day.

Which storage service is being described?

Choose an answer to check it, then compare with the worked solution below.
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Worked solution

Step 1: Identify what each candidate service actually is

  • Cloud storage keeps data on a remote data centre run by a storage company, accessed remotely over the internet, in comparison with storing it locally on a device.
  • Virtual memory is space set aside on a device’s own (local) secondary storage, used by the operating system as an extension of RAM when RAM is full; it is not somewhere a person deliberately uploads their own files, and it is not accessed over the internet.
  • Read-only memory (ROM) is primary storage inside the laptop itself, holding fixed instructions the computer needs when it starts up; it is not a place finished photo edits get uploaded to.
  • Local secondary storage (such as the laptop’s own hard disk drive) keeps data directly on the device, so it would still be accessible without an internet connection.

Step 2: Match the clues in the scenario

The photographer’s edits are uploaded to a remote data centre run by a storage company, and she can access them from a different device only when she has an internet connection, and specifically cannot access recent edits when there is no Wi-Fi. This dependence on a remote server and an internet connection, instead of the data simply being on her own laptop, is exactly what defines cloud storage.

Step 3: Rule out the distractors

  • Not virtual memory: virtual memory is local to a device’s own secondary storage and is used automatically by the operating system, not chosen by a user to store finished files remotely.
  • Not ROM: ROM is primary storage built into the laptop, holding fixed startup instructions, unrelated to storing or sharing photo edits.
  • Not local secondary storage: if the edits were only on the laptop’s own hard disk drive, losing Wi-Fi at the hotel would not stop her from opening files she had already saved that day on that same laptop.

Final answer

The service being described is cloud storage, option A.