When a computer is turned on, it loads the basic input/output system from ROM commonly

known as BIOS. This provides the most basic information about storage devices, boot sequence,
security, Plug and Play (auto device recognition) capability and a few other items. Therefore, this
academic writing will explain the functions of BIOS, it will also differentiate SSD and HDD
with their limitations and finally will discuss the OSI reference model and why it was designed.

The Basic Input/ Output System (BIOS) and also known as the System BIOS, PC BIOS, is non-
volatile firmware used to perform hardware initialization during the booting process (power-on
startup), and to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs (Kildall, 2010).
The BIOS firmware comes pre-installed on a personal computer's system board, and it is the first
software run when powered on.

When a computer is turned on, several events occur automatically: The CPU "wakes up" and
reads the x86 code in the BIOS chip. The code in the BIOS chip runs a series of tests, called the
POST for Power On Self-Test, to make sure the system devices are working correctly. In
general, the BIOS: initializes system hardware and chipset registers, initializes power
management, tests RAM (Random Access Memory), enables the keyboard, tests serial and
parallel ports initializes floppy disk drives and hard disk drive controllers and displays system
summary information

Bradley (2014) also observed that the BIOS software has a number of different roles, but its
most important role is to load the operating system. When you turn on your computer and the
microprocessor tries to execute its first instruction, it has to get that instruction from somewhere.
It cannot get it from the operating system because the operating system is located on a hard disk,
and the microprocessor cannot get to it without some instructions that tell it how. The BIOS
provides those instructions. Some of the other common tasks that the BIOS performs includes
providing a set of low-level routines that the operating system uses to interface to different
hardware devices, it is these routines that give the BIOS its name. They manage things like the
keyboard, the screen, and the serial and parallel ports, especially when the computer is booting
and also managing a collection of settings for the hard disks, clock, etc.

BIOS also plays the function of activating other chips on different cards installed in the computer
e.g. SCSI and graphics cards often have their own BIOS chips.

1
On the other hand, SSD and HDD are two types of storage devices used in computer. An SSD
(solid-state drive) is a type of nonvolatile storage media that stores persistent data on solid-state
flash memory. Two key components make up an SSD: a flash controller and NAND flash
memory chips. The architectural configuration of the SSD controller is optimized to deliver high
read and write performance for both sequential and random data requests. SSDs are sometimes
referred to as flash drives or solid-state disks.

Unlike HDD, an SSD has no moving parts to break or spin up or down. A traditional HDD
consists of a spinning disk with a read/write head on a mechanical arm called an actuator. The
HDD mechanism and hard disk are packaged as an integrated unit.

On the hand, HDD stands for hard disk drive; it is a hardware device that is used to store
information like software and files (Remzi, 2014). The hard disk drive is the main, and usually
largest, data storage hardware device in a computer. The operating system, software titles, and
most other files are stored in the hard disk drive.

The hard drive is sometimes referred to as the "C drive" due to the fact that Microsoft Windows,
by default, designates the "C" drive letter to the primary partition on the primary hard drive in a
computer

In contrast from an SSD, HDD has an enclosure that contains a series of platters covered by a
ferromagnetic coating. The direction of the magnetization represents the individual bits. Data is
read and written by a head (similar to the way vinyl record albums work) that moves extremely
fast from one area of the disk to another. Since all of these pieces are “mechanical,” the hard disk
is the slowest component of any computer and the most fragile.

In its simplest form, an SSD is flash storage and has no moving parts whatsoever. As a result,
they're smaller and take up less space in a PC case, in some instances even mounting directly to
the motherboard. SSD storage is much faster than its HDD equivalent. HDD storage is made up
of magnetic tape and has mechanical parts inside. They're larger than SSDs and much slower to
read and write

According to Hutchinson (2017) the limitations of SSD over HDD is how long they last. It is
known as the write cycle and there are only so many times one can erase and rewrite data on a
solid state drive. Each time this process is completed, cells in the SSD decay. They continue to
decay until the drive cannot be used anymore. Most likely, it will not last as long as the desktop
2
machine will. While on the hand, the HDDs are slower to access data than ROM or RAM chips,
they can crash which stop the computer from working and also regular crashes can damage the
surface of the disk, leading to loss of data in that sector lastly, the disk is fixed inside the
computer and cannot easily be transferred to another computer (Mark, 2010).

OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) is a reference model for how applications communicate
over a network. A reference model is a conceptual framework for understanding relationships.
The purpose of the OSI reference model is to guide vendors and developers so the digital
communication products and software programs they create can interoperate, and to facilitate a
clear framework that describes the functions of a networking or telecommunication system.

Most vendors involved in telecommunications make an attempt to describe their products and
services in relation to the OSI model. And although it is useful for guiding discussion and
evaluation, OSI is rarely actually implemented as-is. That's because few network products or
standard tools keep related functions together in well-defined layers, as is the case in the OSI
model (Margaret, 2019).

The main concept of OSI is that the process of communication between two endpoints in a
network can be divided into seven distinct groups of related functions, or layers. Each
communicating user or program is on a device that can provide those seven layers of function.

In this architecture, each layer serves the layer above it and, in turn, is served by the layer below
it. So, in a given message between users, there will be a flow of data down through the layers in
the source computer, across the network, and then up through the layers in the receiving
computer. Only the application layer, at the top of the stack, doesn’t provide services to a higher-
level layer.

The seven layers of function are provided by a combination of applications, operating systems,

network card device drivers and networking hardware that enable a system to transmit a signal
over a network Ethernet or fiber optic cable or through Wi-Fi or other wireless protocols
(Hubert, 2017).

In conclusion, the OSI is considered a standard model in computer networking which supports
connectionless as well as connection-oriented services. Users can leverage connectionless
services when they need faster data transmissions over the internet and the connection-oriented
model when they’re looking for reliability.
3
 REFERNCES

Bradley, T (2014). BIOS A UEFI Primer". PCWorld. Archived from the original on 2014-01-27.

Retrieved 2019-12-08

Hubert Z (2017). “OSI Reference Model- The ISO Model of Architecture for Open System
Interconnection” IEEE transaction on communications, vol.28, issue 4.
New York.

Hutchinson, L(2017) How SSDs conquered mobile devices and modern OSes Archived  July 7,
2017, at the Wayback Machine. Ars Technica. Retrieved December 8,
2019.

Kildall, G A (2010). BIOS and BDOS for Lawrence Livermore Laboratories. Ohio.

Margaret R (2019) “OSI (Open Systems Interconnection)”, in http://chtarget.com/definition/OSI.

08/12/2019.

Mark K (2010). SSD vs HDD. Storage. https://simple. org/wiki/Solid-state-drive Retrieved 2019-

12-08.

Remzi H (2014). "Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces, Chapter: Hard Disk Drives". London:
Arpaci-Dusseau Books.