Modern Storage Devices

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Modern Storage Devices

There are many ways of storing information and data for use with

modern computer systems and new developments are constantly being

made. Many changes have occurred since the first personal computers

were developed, allowing a lot more information to be stored, and on

storage devices which are generally a lot smaller and easier to handle

than methods of storage previously used.

In the past two or three years, there has been a massive change in the

emphasis that has been placed on certain storage devices. Whereas 3.5"

floppy discs were practically the only commercially available storage

medium available to the public there are now many more on offer. The

biggest change has perhaps been that writeable and rewriteable CD's

are now widely available to the public. For many people, CD-R's have

now replaced the use of floppy discs, as they offer an inexpensive way

of storing large amounts of data. A typical floppy disc stores 1.44

Mb's of data, whereas a CD-R stores 650 Mb and both offer a similarly

priced product.

Some examples of modern storage mediums are:

· Mini Disc

· Tape Drive

· MP3 Card

· Hard Disk Drives

· CD ROM

· Zip Disk

· DVD

The major advances in the ability to store larger amounts of data is

not only desireable, but essential as computers become more complex

each day. As computing technology develops, much more complex

information can be stored requiring much more storage space. An

example of such information is audio and video, which can now be

stored at a very high quality. Although audio uses a lot of storage

space, it should be noted that as storage de...

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...as, hand-held PCs and other consumer electronic devices

Researchers at IBM are currently developing a new substance that could

be used in the manufacture of hard disk drive platters in the future.

Instead of using metallic film on the surface, a solution containing

organic molecules and iron and platinum particles if used on the

platters. This solution is spread out and heated. This causes the iron

and platinum particles to arrange themselves into a natural grid of

crystals, with each crystal able to hold a magnetic charge. This has

the potential to increase the areal density capability of the

recording media of hard disks by as much as 100 times. It is still in

the development stages, and advances still need to be made in the

read/write head capabilities of a hard disk before it can be put into

commercial use.

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