Computer Data Back Up Wars: Who Will Win?

[Saint_Michael 3]

Well my hardware is class is almost over and after reading are weekly chapter the first discussion I wanted to bring to the class was data backup technologies, the website I am using for as a reference is this one. To talk about about what people think of old and new technologies used for backing up your computer's data.

So the first website I came across is the pro's and con's of method of backing up dating through current or latest technologies. The first one the article talks about is ancient technology of the floppy drive as for the history lesson I would believe this to be the best thing since the even larger floppies discs were becoming in impractical as the 90's was the decade of the technology boom. The pro of the floppy disc is pretty much a universal agreement in the sense that the floppy has been replaced. As for the con I would like to add that floppy discs are very easily affected by dust and sand, as an example when my army unit was in Iraq we blew through hundreds of discs because the sand and the dust would ruin them and make it impossible for the computer ot read them.

However, we began using thumb drives which were the most convient if we didn't misplace them and that happen a few times especially with sensitive data. I would agree on the pro's and con's for the flash drive, however, I seen a few 2-4 gig thumb drives for about $15-20; the 1 gig thumb drive I got was about $10. As the thumb technology gets older and wiser the prices will drop.

As for the zip drive I have to use this quote, "Zip drives are a "second generation" floppy disk, which some predicted would eventually replace the 3.5-inch floppy disk. Zip disks, are faster, more durable and hold more information than 3.5-inch disks." We now know that didn't happen, as for why I would have to put on the CD technology and larger hard drives, since thumb drives didn't come out until early 2000. I would have to agree with the pro's and cons with hte zip drive as they were rather expensive and I believe a zip disc ran anywhere from $20-30 for 1 of them.

CD / DVD shouldn't be that hard to explain since they are the most used data back format even to this day, most everyone uses this form of backing up data and I can't recollect if the price for the DVD disc's themselves as drop, as they were pretty expensive 4-5 years ago. The con's are pretty much in agreement in the sense that dust and scratches are tricky to handle, regardless if you dust your computer every hour on the hour.

However, the big one that I am a fan of is external hard drives, what can I say except that if this technology was around back in the 1990s in terms of how much a hard drive could handle, I would most likely have a few hundred of these things laying around with everything I have ever done (lol). One thing I would like to add and I think I am lucky so far is that external hard drives are susceptible to viruses depending on what you use to connect them with. As with the price tag it would depend who you go through to get one, since the big 300+ GB EHD's are becoming rather inexpensive themselves.

My overall assessment is that floppy and zips are no longer required technologies for storing data, but some still use it. Now as for CD's and DVD the only thing I would say is that they are needed for movies and software, with EHD's you don't have to worry about scratching or misplacing them since the EHD's will be right there. Thumb drives are the way of the future especially now that some are getting as big as 60+ gigs and also the fact that they can now be used as a form of RAM for your computer. I do know vista OS is set up so a person could do that, I haven't come across any sites referencing it though, and also I seen a couple thumb drives as WIFI antenna's as well. So it should be interesting who lasts longer the EHD's or the thumb drives.

[Will.Allison 0]

Very intreresting article. I think that Flash Drives will be used a lot more than EHDs just because a lot more people only need the 1-4gigs of space rather than 100+gigs. EHDs andflash drives are both very widely used and I think they will growmore and more as the technology advances and we can getmorespace for less. Another form of storage is the internet. Itis not widely used because it is very slow and tedious butI think it might be a major competitor if we can get it to upload as fast as uploading toa EHD or flash drive. The internet would be better too because you could share your files a lot more easily.Thanks for the article.

[Jimmy 0]

You missed out HOLOGRAPHIC DATA STORAGE!!!!!!!!!!!! - This is near the edge of our techological storage needs (I say near, because it is actually working and available to consumers!)

 

You're also very lucky, while researching this post I came across a well laid out site with all the different technologies (very different to yours) you may well consider "borrowing" most of it

here is the history of data storage link

 

I read all about it in a pdf file I had *searches bookmarks* Honestly I cannot believe I found this, but lap it up. It's a great article, and not too long to read either!!

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ - Since this article the technology has moved on in leaps and bounds, as you would expect. So try looking up holographic storage and seeing where it has got to now

 

Holographic storage basically involves a 3D array of light sensitive material (looks like glass to me) and lasers are used to store data in a 3 dimensional state. Apparantly it stores data page at a time instead of bit-by-bit on the storage surface of our usual CD or DVD media! - It therefore benefits from supreme read and write speeds.

 

near DVD sized discs can hold many Terabytes of data and read+write that with amazing speeds...

Currently a holographic array can hold Petabytes of data (yep, it's real) !!!!!

 

I'll leave you with this quote I found pretty funny lol:

"Yeah, that’s right. It would take approximately 90 million punch cards to be able to store one DVD"

Edited July 25, 2007 by Jimmy (see edit history)

[9block 0]

Thumb drives are an interesting thought, and while i think it would be a good idea... heres the problem.Memory cards... too many variations of memery cards, member sticks, flash drives, thumb drives, ect - and its not universal... That's why I believe USB keys are the way of storing data because you can basically hook anything up to a USB port and store it.You van plug in a simple memory stick via USB, or an external drive such as a harddrive or cd/dvd burner. I would prefere to use the Memory stick, and have them make 30GB sticks... it is definately possible if they can have a thumb drive that big... just with a USB connector instead. The point is you can have various types of backup hardware connected through USB... so I think USB is the wave of today and the future - only because it is standardized. So unless they standardize holagraphic storage cheaply... (and if they do that, there will be holagraphic harddrives and cd's anyway so itll already be standardize. PS: If that ever occurs, pictures will no longer have to be compressed, as well as songs ect. That way they can keep full quality and the space would be nothing.