Differences among sequential access direct access?

Answer 1

Let's say you have a set of 100 pieces of data, which are all names. Now, if you want to find a specific name, "Kevin", you can find it in different ways. You could either go through each of the records one after another, or you could randomly generate a number, and check if that record is "Kevin", this is potentially faster than sequential access as "Kevin" could be the last record.

Answer 2

Random access memory is able to locate data in any order but serial access memory can only locate data in a sequence. Serial access memory will check the first memory cell for the data it needs, if it doesn't have the data it needs then it moves to the next memory cell until it finds the right data.

Answer 3

the main difference between a sequential access and a direct access is that in seq. access you have to traverse whole data which you stored at first.

and in direct access is that in which you can fetch any element from any position.

direct access can be well understood by using a link list.

in hardware also there is direct and sequential access;

direct=RAM(Random Access Memory)

seq.=SAM(sequential access memory)

Answer 4

Sequential access: Memory is organized into units of data, called records. Access must be made in a specific linear sequence.

Direct access: Individual blocks or records have a unique address based on physical location. Access is accomplished by direct access to reach a general vicinity plus sequential searching, counting, or waiting to reach the final location.

Random access: Each addressable location in memory has a unique, physically wired-in addressing mechanism. The time to access a given location is independent of the sequence of prior accesses and is constant.