|
Sci Tech
Data copying
Why does some kind of data, like pictures, take a longer time to get copied?
Nidhin Chandran
Kannur, Kerala
Data is normally stored either in the temporary storage or permanent storage of the computer. Temporary storage is the Random Access Memory (RAM), which needs constant power to keep the data live. Permanent storage mediums are Hard Disk, Floppy Disk, CDRom, USB Flash Memory, etc.
While copying the data, the time taken to transfer the data from one location to another depends on the speed of the medium and the quantity of data that is to be transferred. Pictures and other similar data that are of graphical nature, normally take a lot of space for storage, unlike a text document or spreadsheet.
Because the size of these elements is big, it takes much more time to copy from one location to the other. The above latency (slowness) can also be seen when you browse the internet.
The text contents in a website get downloaded to your browser faster than the pictures. To avoid delay, the quality of the pictures are reduced (which reduces the size too) without affecting the visual quality, and stored in the website. Since these pictures take less amount of space, they get transferred faster from the website to you computer’s browser when browsing the internet. If a text document file containing a number of pages is of the same size as that of a picture, the time taken to copy will be same for both.
M. Sreevalsan
Head - ICTSAmrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu
Answer 2: From the computers perspective we see that all kinds of data are stored internally as binary digits(bits).Procedure for a copying a file is that the computer first copies the file content as bits from the main memory to its RAM buffer) from main memory and then to the new location in the main memory.
In this procedure there is a criteria that only certain amount of bits can be transferred from main memory to RAM at a time which is mentioned by the block size. Ex: 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit computers.
Now data files are characters or numbers and thus each require just one byte (8 bits) or two bytes (16 bits) respectively. Whereas image files are stored pixel by pixel (smallest unit in the screen) and thus require more number of bits to store them. Thus during copying as more number of bits must be transferred between the main memory and RAM, the time taken for copying pictures is more than simple data files. Also the time taken for copying the same picture varies from computer to computer depending on the block size.
S. Anush
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Sci Tech
|
