Peripherals

Puppy Dogs Bite Very Hard

Functions of the Interface (The hardware and Software required to communicate between the Hardware (peripherals) and the processor

Protocol conversion (odd and even parity)
Data Format Conversion (Analogue to digital and visa versa)
Buffering (Temporary Data Storage)
Voltage Conversion (components of motherboard work at lower voltages to peripherals)
Handling of Status Signals (Ready, Out of Ink, Paper Jam)

Solid state storage devices have no moving parts, require less energy are more robust, are physically smaller and more robust.

Buffering - hardware solution, built into peripherals like printer
spooling (also temporary data storage) is the software solution that uses fast backing storage to send data to peripheral at rate it can cope with

Interface speeds are increasing USB 1 - 2 - 3 increased data transfer rates

Backing Storage devices

Smaller Physically, increased capacity, faster data transfer speeds and becoming cheaper per bit storage