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Personal storage: Financial Express
Proliferation of goodies for IT-savvy junkie New Delhi, Feb 06: You are all familiar with floppy disks and hard disks. For two decades of the PC era, they were the default mobile storage and secondary storage devices, respectively.
Proliferation of goodies for IT-savvy junkie
New Delhi, Feb 06: You are all familiar with floppy disks and hard disks. For two decades of the PC era, they were the default mobile storage and secondary storage devices, respectively. We needed secondary storage (hard disks) to store things permanently when the PC was turned off; when we wanted to move programmes and data across the machines (home to office or inter-city), we looked at mobile storage (floppy disks). But in the last five years, there has been a dramatic increase in the capacity of the hard disks; floppy disk capacity has gone up over the years. There are any numbers of new devices, some completely solid state (no moving parts) CD, DVD, flash drive, zip drive and memory cards. The technology is moving from mere magnetic storage to optical and magneto optical drives; even the hard disk is becoming removable. They come in many forms; traditional disks — of decreasing size from 5 to 1.5, 0.5 to even 0.3; key chain devices (flash drives); stamp size memory cards. They are no longer used with PCs alone but with cameras, mobile handsets, PDAs, MP3 devices, Auto PCs, and GPS devices. What is stored is not just programme or data; it could be songs, movie clippings, video clippings, photographs or maps. With medical imaging equipment going digital, the content could be ultrasound, X-ray, MRI or CT Scan images very soon. Naturally, personal storage technology has grown by leaps and bounds. Many of the technologies matured out of the need to provide faster, larger and better storage for enterprises. The small footprint, low power consumption, low weight and minimal EMI added more demands on these devices. There are four drivers behind this phenomenal growth. One tries to push the limits of packaging density so that one can store more data in less space; the other tries to make them more reliable with long life; the third driver is to consume less and less electrical power (in the process look for no moving parts option); the fourth, of course, is to make the devices more affordable.
For removable media look at re-writeable CD (CD/RW) — a great option if you are looking at storage of less than 1 GB companies like Acer/Dell have made it a standard option on their notebooks, with typical costs of Rs 3,000 for drive and Rs 20 for media; DVD is a better option, with 4-16 GB capacity, they can be written using DVD recorders; they are very useful for movies; if you are looking at larger capacity do look at ZIP drives (Iomega has a 250GB drive for $150).
For removable storage, you can look at memory cards. SanDisk and Sony are the leaders. SD and xD are the two leading formats; with many vendors, there are multiple standards and sizes; luckily, many of them can work across the other types. Sizes range from 4 MB to 1 GB; they have no moving parts, extremely reliable and very portable; they are ideal for storing address books, calendar, pictures, audio, and music. Flash Memory device is the other option. They come in the key chain form factor, store up to 256 MB capacity at Rs 3,000 (SONY Micro Vault is a great example); they are great to store pictures, songs and of course programmes and data.
If you need high speed read and write, you should look at removable hard disks; those with Firewire (IEEE 1394) high-speed transfers are good for this application (Hitachi and others have drives with 100+ GB at prices starting from $100); in general, you pay a steep price for micro drives or for very rugged application such as Auto PC/Truck PC.
Obviously, you have a lot to choose from. I have only indicated a representative set; the idea is to show the diverse variety available today. This is by no means an exhaustive list. With the proliferation of devices (beyond PC) and the application going beyond programmes and data, the demands are many, and so are the solutions. Happy storage!
New Delhi, Feb 06: You are all familiar with floppy disks and hard disks. For two decades of the PC era, they were the default mobile storage and secondary storage devices, respectively. We needed secondary storage (hard disks) to store things permanently when the PC was turned off; when we wanted to move programmes and data across the machines (home to office or inter-city), we looked at mobile storage (floppy disks). But in the last five years, there has been a dramatic increase in the capacity of the hard disks; floppy disk capacity has gone up over the years. There are any numbers of new devices, some completely solid state (no moving parts) CD, DVD, flash drive, zip drive and memory cards. The technology is moving from mere magnetic storage to optical and magneto optical drives; even the hard disk is becoming removable. They come in many forms; traditional disks — of decreasing size from 5 to 1.5, 0.5 to even 0.3; key chain devices (flash drives); stamp size memory cards. They are no longer used with PCs alone but with cameras, mobile handsets, PDAs, MP3 devices, Auto PCs, and GPS devices. What is stored is not just programme or data; it could be songs, movie clippings, video clippings, photographs or maps. With medical imaging equipment going digital, the content could be ultrasound, X-ray, MRI or CT Scan images very soon. Naturally, personal storage technology has grown by leaps and bounds. Many of the technologies matured out of the need to provide faster, larger and better storage for enterprises. The small footprint, low power consumption, low weight and minimal EMI added more demands on these devices. There are four drivers behind this phenomenal growth. One tries to push the limits of packaging density so that one can store more data in less space; the other tries to make them more reliable with long life; the third driver is to consume less and less electrical power (in the process look for no moving parts option); the fourth, of course, is to make the devices more affordable.
For removable media look at re-writeable CD (CD/RW) — a great option if you are looking at storage of less than 1 GB companies like Acer/Dell have made it a standard option on their notebooks, with typical costs of Rs 3,000 for drive and Rs 20 for media; DVD is a better option, with 4-16 GB capacity, they can be written using DVD recorders; they are very useful for movies; if you are looking at larger capacity do look at ZIP drives (Iomega has a 250GB drive for $150).
For removable storage, you can look at memory cards. SanDisk and Sony are the leaders. SD and xD are the two leading formats; with many vendors, there are multiple standards and sizes; luckily, many of them can work across the other types. Sizes range from 4 MB to 1 GB; they have no moving parts, extremely reliable and very portable; they are ideal for storing address books, calendar, pictures, audio, and music. Flash Memory device is the other option. They come in the key chain form factor, store up to 256 MB capacity at Rs 3,000 (SONY Micro Vault is a great example); they are great to store pictures, songs and of course programmes and data.
If you need high speed read and write, you should look at removable hard disks; those with Firewire (IEEE 1394) high-speed transfers are good for this application (Hitachi and others have drives with 100+ GB at prices starting from $100); in general, you pay a steep price for micro drives or for very rugged application such as Auto PC/Truck PC.
Obviously, you have a lot to choose from. I have only indicated a representative set; the idea is to show the diverse variety available today. This is by no means an exhaustive list. With the proliferation of devices (beyond PC) and the application going beyond programmes and data, the demands are many, and so are the solutions. Happy storage!