Power Connectors
The power connectors of the supply of a standard PC convert the high voltage Alternating Current (A.C) into low voltage Direct Current (D.C) that is used for driving the motherboard and the other disk drive. These power supplies are AT and ATX. Each of these power supplies has its own connector and cannot be interchanged.
Basically, a power supply can satisfy three types of power connectors listed as follows.
(1) MOTHERBOARD POWER CONNECTORS
These are used for connecting the motherboard to the PSU (Power Supply Unit)
AT Power Connectors
This is one of the kinds of motherboard connectors. P8 and P9 are the two connectors of this type that are used for powering the motherboard. Both of these connectors consist of 6 pins using which the AT power supply can deliver + 5V, + 12V, -5V and -12V voltages. Hence 4 pins are reserved for producing these voltages in P8 and P9 connectors. The remaining two pins are rounded.
ATX Power Connectors
This is the kind of motherboard connector. It consists of a single P1 connector that is used for powering the motherboard. This connector consists of 20 pins that can deliver +5v. +12v, -5v, -12v and +3.3v voltages
It is capable of producing an additional voltage of +3.3v when compared to the AT power Connector.
Molex Connectors
These are used for connecting various external devices such as hard
2) MOLEX CONNECTOR
This connector is used for producing the power to hard devices, CD and DVD media drives and tape drivers. In specific, It is capable Of powering the ATA hard disks.
CD ROMS 5inch floppy drives and other peripheral devices. It basically consists of four pins capable of producing +5v and 12v of voltages
3. Mini connector
This is used For connecting 3.5-inch floppy drives
Mini connectors
This type of connector is used for powering the floppy drives. In specific, It can supply power to 3.5 floppy drives. Just like a Molex connector. This also Consists of four pins capable of producing +5v and +12v of voltages.
FEATURES OF EXTERNAL DEVICES
The features of external devices are as follows,
(a) FEATURES OF FLOPPY DISK DRIVE
A floppy drive is a kind of disk drive that has the ability to read and write the data into disks called floppy diskettes. These diskettes are very similar to those of the CD’S and DVDs, but the only difference is that they can hold very small amount of information. The features of the floppy drives are listed below,
(i) Size
This feature refers to the size of the floppy drive as to how big they are. Initially, they were 8 inches but later reduced to 3.5 inches
(ii) Data Storage
The floppy diskettes are capable of storing the data in them. By this, the data will be backed up so that it will be always available at the time of failure and system crashes.
(iii) Software and Drivers
These are also capable of storing certain software and drivers for some hardware components.
(iv) File Transfer
The 3.5-inch floppy disk drives extended their support to transferring of files between the computers by compressing the files.
b) FEATURES OF CD-ROM
CD-ROM stands for Compact Disc-Read-Only Memory.
It is capable of storing text, graphics, and sounds. The storage is done by using different tracks. The features of CD-ROM are listed below.
(i) Capacity
A CD-ROM is capable of storing 680MB of data that is not compressed. This is approximately equal to 3,00,000 manually written (or) typed pages.
(ii) Data Access
It facilitates the user to read (or’ access the data that is present on it. This access can be done randomly. Because of this the time required to obtain the data is highly reduced
(iii) Cost
The cost is also highly reduced when CD-ROMs are used for storing data. The costs include production costs and shipping costs.
(iv) Longevity and Integrity
The data can be stored for very long durations of time without any problem. The duration can even be 100 years. It also provides integrity to the data is it supports read operation.
