Now thousands of things are put on the Internet every day, but what entity do they stay in? The "things" on the network include e-mail, text files, program files, chat records, songs, movies, etc. These contents are attached to the physical carrier in the form of binary numbers.
Let's start with the first statement: the content on the network is stored in the computer. This statement has at least three meanings. One is that they are stored in memory. Memory in entity refers to some memory modules inserted on the computer motherboard, as well as the memory in the host, CPU and other locations. These contents are only temporarily stored in memory. Once the power is off, they disappear without a trace. Second, they exist on removable storage devices such as USB flash disk (previously floppy disk), optical disk and so on. The CD in the USB flash disk and optical drive can be removed from the computer, taken with you, and put into other compatible computers for further use. Third, it exists on the hard disk. Hard disk is a storage device composed of magnetic disk, which is composed of a circle of tracks. The zero track is generally used to put the system information. Once the system information is destroyed, the contents stored on other tracks will disappear.
Let's look at the second statement: the content on the network is stored in the server. The server is actually a computer, but it is a computer that serves other computers through networking. Similarly, there is disk array, which is a combination of a series of hard disks controlled by a computer as a server. Generally, when a server is used as a computer, it may only hang one or two hard disks, while the disk array is composed of many hard disks, mainly for storage rather than calculation.
There is another saying: the content on the network is stored in the cloud or data warehouse. Of course, this does not mean that you get on a plane and put the content on the clouds, or there is really a warehouse with an iron gate and stack CDs in the warehouse. From a physical point of view, storing in the cloud means putting it in a server based on cloud computing; Put in the data warehouse means put in the software called data warehouse. In fact, the data warehouse in the form of software and the data in the warehouse are still stored on the hard disk of the server or in the disk array.
When someone tells you that he put photos or other content in his personal space, it means putting the content in the Internet service provider, which actually means that these service providers rent servers in the data center (IDC) computer room to store these materials.
In the era of big data, people produce more and more data. It is difficult to store enough information only by personal terminal devices such as personal computers or mobile phones. In order to save everyone's hard disk, service providers have developed cloud servers with larger and smaller storage capacity and less power consumption. They can be placed in the nearest place for you to use and serve you at any time. The storage device you can see with the naked eye may look like a container, connected anywhere with wires and network cables, filled with thin connected servers and disk arrays. Maybe those secrets on your network are stored there.