the physical database design methodology presented in
Chapter 18 require the selection of appropriate file organizations and indexes for
the base relations that have been created to represent the part of the enterprise
being modeled. In this appendix we introduce the main concepts regarding the
physical storage of the database on secondary storage devices such as magnetic
disks and optical disks. The computer’s primary storage—that is, main memory—
is inappropriate for storing the database. Although the access times for primary
storage are much faster than secondary storage, primary storage is not large or
reliable enough to store the quantity of data that a typical database might require.
Because the data stored in primary storage disappears when power is lost, we refer
to primary storage as volatile storage. In contrast, the data on secondary storage
persists through power loss, and is consequently referred to as nonvolatile storage.