Data storage devices have changed a lot in the last several years since their inception. With the advent of increasing requirements, the need to create larger capacity in smaller packages has been accomplished. Digital storage formats can be used at a future time or as a backup resource. Common types available are flash memory and disk storage mediums.

Disk storage is done on a rotating, round surface that is two-dimensional. Disk drives are used to record or retrieve information. The term is normally used for hard disks but can also apply to optical and floppy disks.

Floppy disks are seldom used or seen anymore, but they are magnetic disks encased in a square plastic shell. The medium is a thin flexible circle. They are read by a floppy disk drive and were invented by IBM in 1969. They come in 3 1/2, 5 1/4 and 8 inch sized disks. They were mainly used from the 1970’s through the 1990’s. As they were limited in their capacity to store large amounts of information and were not very fast for the increasing demands from users they fell out of favor but they are still used in very limited supply.

Compact disks or CD’s are optical disks used for digital storage. They were introduced in 1982 which launched the creation of the CD-ROM, CD-RW, CD-R, SVCD, VCD and enhanced CD. They come in a 120mm diameter and can hold 700 MB of information. It is thought that over 200 billion CD’s were sold by the year 2007.

DVD’s or digital versatile disks are optical devices that have the same physical dimensions as a CD but they hold six times more information than a CD can. DVD audios stores audio files and DVD videos stores video files. The original DVD’s were referred to as Standard Definition or SD-DVD. After the advent of Blu-Ray high definition DVD’s were discontinued.

Blu-ray disks, or BD as they are called, are optical disks for digital storage that are manufactured by Sony. They are used for high definition video and gaming applications for the most part. They are the same size as a DVD or CD but can store 50GB of information. They use a blue-violet laser to read information which is how they got the name. They are the most popular medium due to their ability to hold such a high capacity of information.

Hard disk drives store encoded digital data on magnetic surfaces that are rotating platters. They are non-volatile meaning the information is stored even when powered down. They were invented in 1954 by a team at IBM. The earlier versions were removable but today they are in sealed units. The first hard disk held 5MB on 24 inch platters, it took fifty of them to hold this amount of information. Today capacity has increased to more than 100GB and increases all the time.

The USB drive has a NAND-type of flash memory that is integrated with the USB interface present on most computers and hand held devices. USB flash drives are rewritable and reusable. They are small and their capacity ranges are from 64MB up to 128MB and some allow as much as 1 million write and erase cycles. Some of them even offer 10 year information retention. Another type of popular portable device is the memory card. These are used in digital cameras, mobile computers and hand-held devices. They use flash memory that is rewritable and non-volatile. They are small but high capacity with around 8MB or higher as an average size. Digital teams of developers are creating more powerful and secure data storage methods every day.

Author Bio: Tape Guard data storage companies is dedicated to providing total document and information management solutions. We specialize in off-site tape data storage, data relocation, certified data destruction, and off-site data protection services.

Category: Computers and Technology
Keywords: media solutions, data relocation, data storage, data destruction, data management, data companies