Types of information storage devices for a computer. Data storage. magnetic media hard magnetic

Every user at least once in his life heard about such a category of devices as external storage devices. However, not everyone had the opportunity to work with them or touch them by touch. And those users who have worked with some external data drives do not have much idea about what varieties of these devices exist today, as well as about the main characteristics that each type of these gadgets has. Nevertheless, external storage devices are very convenient, practical to use and provide users with great opportunities, so you need to get to know them in more detail.

purpose

Any electronic device that can be found on store shelves is designed to perform certain tasks. External data drives are no exception and allow you to store large amounts of information in electronic form, which can be stored intact for a long period of time. However, for this, external drives must have sufficient memory that would allow recording large data packets, as well as be highly reliable so that information does not disappear from the device’s memory.
Among the main technical characteristics of external storage devices that you need to pay attention to when buying a device, we can distinguish:
- read / write speed, on which the speed of the device depends;
- the quality of the components from which the gadget was made;
- the presence of a data encryption function that significantly increases the level of protection of confidential information stored on the drive;
- compatibility, on which the ability to synchronize external drives with other devices and operating systems depends.

However, it is immediately worth noting that it is impossible to choose a universal storage device of external type that could satisfy the needs of each user, therefore, when choosing a device, it is necessary to take into account specific needs, for which the device will serve.

Classification

Depending on the characteristics of external storage devices, all data drives are divided into some classifications:
— Capacitive. They have a large amount of memory and allow you to store huge amounts of data. Drives of this category allow you to record and store several tens of terabytes of information.
- Speedy. They have a significantly smaller amount of memory compared to the previous category, however, they are able to write and read data very quickly. However, it is immediately worth noting that high-speed drives are not designed to store information for a long period of time.
- Simple. This category is the most popular among most modern users due to its low cost and ease of use. However, they do not have a large amount of memory and high speed.
— Reliable. Information storage devices of this category have a high resource of work and allow storing electronic data for many decades.

Many consumers may have a question: “Which category of external storage devices should I prefer?”. There can be no unequivocal answer, as well as strict recommendations, since each type of drive is designed for a certain category of users and performs a certain function assigned to it. For example, the first category is suitable for large companies that physically cannot place corporate information on servers. For the average user, like you and me, simple drives are the best option because they are inexpensive and very easy to use.

Nevertheless, it is worth noting that information cannot be stored on a computer's hard drive forever, because in the process of working at a computer, the HDD gradually wears out, as a result of which it may stop working one day. Therefore, it is recommended that you back up important files and electronic documents and store them somewhere other than your computer, for which external storage drives are ideal.

Optical drives

For many decades, optical drives, such as CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs, have remained one of the most common external storage devices, however, as technological progress has developed, they have gradually outlived their usefulness and have been forced out of the market by more modern devices.

Optical drives were quite cheap and allowed you to record 700 megabytes or 4 gigabytes, depending on the type of disc. There are two types of discs: R and RW. The first type was intended for a one-time write, and the second allowed data to be overwritten, which made it more versatile. However, it should be noted right away that optical drives have low resistance to mechanical and physical stress, so you need to be extremely careful when working with them, otherwise you can quickly render them unusable.
To date, optical discs are still used by some private users or small businesses who need to store documentation. DVDs are the most popular because they are inexpensive and can hold up to four gigabytes of information. However, to write data to this external drive, you must have a DVD-compatible burner on your desktop or laptop computer.

As for the optical drives themselves, discs from Verbatim have shown high reliability, and you can purchase a drive from manufacturers such as LG, Samsung or Asus to write data to them.

Non-volatile data drives

These devices include regular USB flash drives or more modern solid state drives. However, when choosing such devices, it is necessary to take into account some nuances. Firstly, they have a rather high cost with a small amount of physical memory, and secondly, the stability of their work is at a rather low level. As practice shows, an ordinary computer USB flash drive can fail even due to improper removal from the port.

You should not count on the fact that in the near future the situation with flash drives will somehow change. It's all about that. That the cost of external drives in this category increases as the amount of memory itself increases, as well as low technical characteristics significantly limit the areas of application in which flash memory can be used.

As for the recommendations of professionals, they do not recommend using USB flash drives and memory cards to store important information due to low reliability. But for short-term storage and transfer of data from one computer to another, they are just perfect. However, there is no need to create special illusions, since this memory has enough shortcomings. Despite the relatively low retail price, absolutely all flash drives do not tolerate contact with water, and the design of their case is very fragile, so you should be extremely careful when working with them.

The main characteristic of external drives with a USB interface, in addition to the amount of memory, is the speed of reading / writing data. You should not attach special importance to the external design, case material, color and other similar trifles, since the main role is played by the quality of the controller itself.

With the choice of memory cards, there are no special problems either. Regardless of the type of memory card, the only parameter that you should pay attention to is the class of the drive, since the speed of the device depends on it. The higher the class, the faster the process of reading / writing data. The fastest class today is the tenth, and as for manufacturing companies, this does not really matter.
But when buying a USB flash drive, you will have to suffer a little, since modern manufacturers do not indicate the bandwidth in the technical documentation, so it is very difficult to determine the true speed of a particular device. The most common external USB drives are second generation flash drives, which support transfers of about 10 MB per second, while third generation USB drives are much faster.

The best option

If you are faced with the need to purchase an external storage device, then it is recommended to pay attention to solid-state hard drives or SSDs. These devices have not only an excellent indicator of speed, but are also among the most reliable. This was achieved thanks to innovative technologies and modern cell structure.

Of course, if mechanical damage occurs as a result of excessive physical impact or the negative influence of environmental factors, then the solid state drive will become unusable, however, it can still be used as a large USB drive, from which it will be possible to restore all stored on it data. It is thanks to this that an increasing number of users are switching to this type of hard drive.

In addition, if you calculate the equivalent cost, solid state drives provide the cheapest way to store electronic data arrays. This type of drives is the best ratio of cost and storage capacity. According to mathematical calculations that were made by some IT specialists, one gigabyte of space on a solid-state hard drive costs about fifteen rubles, which makes it the cheapest type of external storage devices on the market compared to other types of storage and data transfer devices.

Thus, it is not so difficult to come to the conclusion that a more reasonable solution, in terms of economy, is to buy a drive with more memory. If we talk about which manufacturer to give preference to, then there is no fundamental importance, since all modern companies present on the market produce high-quality external solid-state storage devices.

Technologies of the future

Today, the most modern device for recording and storing data, with excellent reliability and the highest performance, is a streamer, which records information on a special high-density magnetic tape. It is this device that provides users with the largest amount of information storage. It is worth noting that the amount of data stored in a streamer is not measured in megabytes, as is typical for all other types of external drives, but in terabytes. In addition, having a special encryption key, you can read information from the cassette from absolutely any device.

It is also worth noting that on the network you can find many special utilities with which you can encode and compress data, which allows you to record even more information. And, despite the fact that this method of recording, storing and transmitting data was invented in the distant future, it remains relevant today due to the lack of more modern devices that could surpass streamers in terms of their technologies.

However, there is one caveat. The thing is that streamers are not available for sale, so the average user will not be able to just go to a computer store and buy this device. Yes, and there are many problems with the synchronization of the streamer and the computer. However, some domestic manufacturers have already developed and released special adapters, with the help of which there will be absolutely no problems with connecting the streamer.

Guests from the past

There is another type of external storage device called a floppy disk, however, an older generation has worked with it or seen it in the eyes. These days, it is impossible to see this external drive on the counter of stores, since it has been out of production for more than ten years. This type of drive is one of the most unreliable, since it is possible to disable it and lose all the information stored on it simply by negligence. The thing is that the principle of operation of a floppy disk is based on an electromagnetic field, therefore, leaving it even for a short time near a magnet, the flexible medium is demagnetized and all data is lost forever. To protect against data loss, special cases were used to prevent exposure to electromagnetic fields on the diskette.

Representatives of the budget category

Ordinary hard drives, which are used in desktop computers, placed in a protective case and equipped with a mini-USB connector designed for synchronization with a computer, can also act as external storage devices. It is responsible not only for data transfer, but also for the power supply of the device. In terms of stability and reliability, external HDDs are practically in no way inferior to other types of external drives, and some even surpass them. User distrust of these devices is caused by frequent Windows system failures that lead to data loss, however, this is purely software in nature and has nothing to do with the hardware. Moreover, lost information can be easily recovered using special software.

As for the advantages, external hard drives have a long service life, and the recorded data can be stored on them for several decades. In addition, hard drives are an excellent value for money, after trimers, in terms of the cheapness of one unit of memory.

The main criteria for choosing an external HDD, in addition to the volume, which is a standard parameter, is the speed of work, which is directly dependent on the speed of rotation of the magnetic head that reads information from magnetic drives.

In most laptops, you cannot insert a second hard drive, and changing the main one is not always easy. External storage devices come to the rescue.

External drives are used to store, transfer and back up data in computer systems. The main types of such drives are devices based on hard drives and flash memory. In some cases, external optical drives are used as such drives, but since most computers have internal drives for reading and writing CD, DVD or Blu-ray, such drives are of limited distribution and we will not dwell on them here (more on optical drives, see a separate article).

Flash drives

Due to the decrease in prices for flash memory, external drives based on it are becoming more common. A typical flash drive is a small device, about the size of a disposable lighter, equipped with a built-in USB connector. At the same time, the volume of such miniature drives can vary in a very wide range: from one to 128 GB. To date, the most popular models with a capacity of 8 to 16 GB can be purchased for 500-900 rubles, modifications in protected rubberized and sealed aluminum cases are slightly more expensive. As a rule, 8-16 gigabyte flash drives are purchased not for storage and backup, but for quick data transfer.

High-capacity flash drives are significantly more expensive: 64 GB models are already estimated at about 5,000 rubles, and 128 GB models at 11,000 rubles and more. It is easy to calculate that the cost of a gigabyte of disk space in such drives is about one and a half times higher (from 85 rubles) than in drives of a small capacity. In addition, an external mini-hard drive of the same volume will cost about three times cheaper, so consumers prefer it.

External HDs

Hard drives have been the best solution for storing and backing up large amounts of data for several decades now. Modern hard drives are distinguished by high reliability, high capacity and low cost of data storage: in the best models it is from 3 to 4 rubles per gigabyte.

External hard drives can be divided into four broad categories: drives based on 2.5-inch drives, drives based on 3.5-inch drives, multimedia drives, and NAS systems.

Drives based on 2.5-inch "notebook" hard drives are the smallest: they are considered portable and easily fit into a shirt pocket. However, compared to 3.5-inch drives, they have significantly lower write and read speeds, limited capacity, and the cost of a gigabyte of storage is one and a half to two times higher. A typical read speed for such disks is 35 MB / s, writes - 30 MB / s, for the best models, read and write speeds can reach 50 MB / s.

The volume of 2.5-inch external hard drives is from 120 to 500 GB, the cost of storing a gigabyte of data is, on average, from 8 to 12 rubles.

As a rule, 2.5-inch hard drives are equipped with a USB 2.0 interface, sometimes eSATA, and almost never support FireWire, with the exception of ZIV-branded drives. In many cases, USB power is sufficient for these drives.

It is also worth mentioning models based on 1.8-inch "subnotebook" hard drives, which are even smaller than 2.5-inch ones. Typically, the capacity of such drives is limited to 120 GB and they are equipped exclusively with a USB 2.0 interface. These discs are rarely found in stores, usually they are distributed at various events as souvenirs.

The most popular and popular category is external drives based on standard 3.5-inch hard drives. They can consist of one or two hard drives placed in one case, and in the latter case, it is usually possible to organize RAID arrays of levels 0 (disk pooling) and 1 (mirroring).

For drives based on 3.5-inch hard drives, a read speed of 70-90 MB / s and a write speed of 60-80 MB / s are typical. For the most productive models, the read speed can reach 120 MB / s, and the write speed - 110 MB / s. The volume of such drives is usually from 500 GB to 2 TB in single-drive models and up to 4 TB in dual-drive models. The cost of storing one gigabyte, on average, is from 4 to 8 rubles, for the best models - from 3 to 4 rubles.

3.5-inch external drives can be equipped with a full range of a wide variety of modern interfaces: in addition to the obligatory USB 2.0, they are equipped with eSATA, FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 controllers, as well as a promising USB 3.0 interface.

Multimedia drives are a special category of external hard drives based on 2.5- or 3.5-inch hard drives, which are equipped with a built-in decoder for popular audio and video formats, as well as a software media player with hardware controls. In fact, these drives are hard disk-based multimedia players and are usually equipped with a remote control.

Such devices can be directly connected to the TV and audio system and they will act as a stand-alone multimedia player that is not connected to a computer. To do this, they are equipped with "household" video interfaces (composite, component, HDMI), as well as analog and digital audio outputs. In many cases, a card reader is built into these devices, which allows direct playback of multimedia content from removable flash cards. There are modifications designed exclusively for connecting removable hard drives, purchased separately.

In the standard arsenal of multimedia drives - support for MPEG-1/2/4, DivX and XviD video formats, MP3, WAV, AAC audio formats, as well as JPEG digital images. The possibility of working with other formats should be clarified separately when choosing each specific model.

At the same time, of course, such devices can also be used as ordinary computer external drives - usually via USB 2.0 and eSATA interfaces.

The most complex and expensive type of external drives are NAS systems, that is, network storage devices. These are external devices with one or more 3.5-inch hard drives, equipped with an Ethernet network interface (for all modern models - gigabit) and having the functionality of a mini-server.

NAS drives are networked computers, the main function of which is to provide access to the data stored in them for any computer that is part of the local network. At the same time, many of these devices have the extended functionality of a "real" server that can connect to the Internet and exchange data via FTP and HTTP protocols.

Some NAS have built-in multimedia servers that allow you to play and broadcast content stored on hard drives over a local network, as well as print servers: printers connected to the NAS will be available to all computers on the network. Many models are equipped with data backup software.

However, the most requested feature, for which NAS drives are most often purchased or assembled, is the built-in peer-to-peer client, thanks to which you can upload and download files from the BitTorrent and eMule networks without turning on the computer. Such devices are able to work around the clock, consuming much less electricity than a full-fledged PC, and making almost no noise (however, this depends on the specific design).

Despite the fact that NAS drives are usually built on the basis of 3.5-inch drives, in terms of speed they are often inferior even to 2.5-inch external hard drives. Manufacturers rely on reliability, rightly believing that the low speed of access via a local network makes it pointless to use drives with high speed characteristics. Of course, when connected directly to a computer via USB 2.0 or eSATA interfaces, the drives demonstrate quite typical performance for 3.5-inch hard drives.

Prices for NAS drives vary quite widely: extremely simple single-disk models without an FTP / HTTP server cost about 4,000 rubles, and multifunctional systems with support for five hot-swap hard drives can cost more than 30,000 rubles. At the same time, for quite a bit of money, you can independently assemble a NAS from an old computer or from inexpensive components for nettops. For such "self-assembly", a special and completely free assembly of the FreeBSD operating system, called FreeNAS, is often used. This software allows you to set up a network storage device with almost any required functionality.

MicroSD cards have recently been produced with the largest capacity and fastest speed since their introduction. The new 128 GB cards have shown that there has been more than a thousandfold increase in storage density over the past decade, and the fastest of these microSD cards can now compete with other high-speed wireless networking attributes.
The SD Association was formed by application developers and manufacturers of microSD cards and components for them. The organization sets the technology standards and sets the direction for the microSD industry. SD Association President Brian Kumagai talked about some of the latest technology trends that will enable microSD to continue to be a viable storage solution in the future.

Five 120 GB SSDs

Six months ago, these pages would have featured large text on 240 and 480 GB models, but in current financial conditions, we settled on 120 GB options. Many people think that one rule should be followed in this sector - take it cheaper and don't bother - but not everything is so simple, the market for budget solid state drives is very tricky.
Under a well-known brand and a proven series, a sample of the previous generation on an old controller and memory type may well be hiding. In order to avoid such situations, we studied five drives in detail: Plextor M6S, OCZ Arc 100, Kingston HyperX 3K, SanDisk Ultra Plus and ADATA XPG SX910.

Let's say right away that we will not deal with the description of the configuration and appearance of the SSD in the course of the article. All participants are thin metal rectangles, differing only in different

If the laptop owner does not have enough memory on the device, its volume can be increased using a SATA disk. The main difference between this method of increasing memory is that this will require a USB drive. The installation of this hard drive is simple, and if you don’t want to do it yourself, we recommend a good laptop repair service at a high professional level. Now let's move on to describing the procedure for this procedure and considering the technical features.

So, the list of actions when connecting:

1. Connect the USB drive connected to the container to the laptop using a cable for the USB port.

2. In order for the laptop to detect a SATA drive, you must enable the settings for working with a connected drive. After all the wires are connected, you will see that the corresponding bulbs light up.

3. Turn on your PC, and while booting it, press the Delete key. The BIOS settings menu will be displayed, in which you need to select the line that displays the connected devices, including the SATA HDD.

4. When installing an additional disk, each operating system also requires a driver for them, however, there are also OS versions that already have drivers for the SATA disk.

For some users, the word "driver" is unfamiliar, why

This creates an obvious need for such media that can store huge amounts of data. Optical discs, which not so long ago were considered quite capacious, today cannot provide this task. Even the capacity of Blu-ray discs is no longer enough.

To record any information on an optical disc, it is necessary to burn each bit of it with a laser beam on its surface. Later, this pattern, consisting of small dots, is read by a special device and converted into raw data.
The size of these dots just determines the capacity of the disk. But it cannot be reduced to infinity, since the diffraction limit that sets the width of the light beam is one second of the radiation wavelength. This results in the diameter

Campaign, in five or eight years, it will be possible to do without hard in the system unit, stuffing it with a couple of fat SSDs for storing all sorts of things. At least a terabyte will be enough for me to store all the important information, and another terabyte will go under any multimedia content whose lifespan does not exceed a couple of months. I will entrust everything else to the encrypted storage under the table (I think by that time they will release NAS on slow, but reliable flash drives). A kind of spindleless future with the possibility of dynamic overloads of several hundred Gs. A solid state from ADATA prompted me to such spatial fabrications. Quite suddenly, this 256 GB drive was based not on some SandForce (I know, I know, they can be cooked correctly, but I dislike them because of the dreary past), but on Marvell 88SS9189. At the same time, such a thing can be found in retail for less than 5,000 rubles! Yes, petrofan is a considerable amount, you can take three terabytes for it

When I came to test the Seagate Wireless Plus external hard drive, I thought that this device is brilliant and able to change the world, break stereotypes and bring humanity one step closer to a great bright future. In fact, this electronic device is one big facepalm. I already hear a lot of selective swearing and see rotten vegetables on the way. It's Seagate, how come they couldn't! Outwardly, the disk looks solid: it is clear that it was sharpened under the ilith. At first I was seduced, though a rogue at heart. The build quality is at its best, it does not creak, does not break, does not fall off, solid impact-resistant plastic. The main feature of Wireless Plus is not in volume (only 1 TB, which is not wow by modern standards) and USB 3.0, but in the fact that it can work without wires. At all. This is his trump card, his most impressive difference from all

Data storage is the device on which all computer data is stored. In addition to the drive, this device is called a hard drive or hard drive. A hard disk differs from a conventional "floppy" disk, or in other words, a floppy disk, in that information is recorded on hard plates made of aluminum or ceramics, and on top they are covered with a ferrimagnetic material. Hard drives are equipped with one or more platters on an axle.

The data storage device (HDD) is composed of a sealed unit and an electronic board. The hermetically sealed unit is filled with normal, dust-free air by atmospheric pressure and is equipped with all mechanical parts. The kinematics of the data drive includes one or more magnetic disks, which are rigidly fixed to the motor spindle, as well as a system responsible for positioning the magnetic heads. The magnetic head occupies a place on one of the sides of the moving magnetic disk and its functional duties include reading and writing data from the rotating surface of the magnetic disk. The heads themselves are attached with special holders, and their movement is carried out using a positioning system between the edge and the center of the disk. It is possible to achieve precise positioning of magnetic heads by means of servo information recorded on the disk. The positioning system, reading this information, is able to determine the strength of the current passed through the coil of electromagnetic wire so that the magnetic head can be fixed over the required track.

After the power is turned on, the processor of the hard drive (drive) begins to test the electronics, after which a command is issued to enable the process of directly turning on the spindle motor. As soon as the initialization is completed, the positional system is tested, during which the tracks are enumerated in the specified sequence. If the test went well, the hard drive sends a signal that it is ready to go. To increase the level of reliability of computer information storage, hard drives (drives) are equipped with a special firmware that monitors the technological parameters available for the reading and analysis program. If the computer is in danger of failure, then with the help of this program the user will know about it in a timely manner.

In addition, a hybrid hard drive is also a data drive, which consists of a traditional hard drive equipped with an additional one. This flash memory is completely non-volatile and is assigned the role of a buffer in which the most frequently used data is stored. As a result of the activity of this device, access to the magnetic disk is reduced, which accordingly leads to a decrease in power consumption. The level of reliability of storing information is also increased, the time required to boot and to wake the system from sleep mode is reduced, and the temperature and acoustic noise that the hard drive emits are significantly reduced.

The device of all hard drives is completely similar and absolutely all types of data drives can fail, therefore, the main thing that every user needs to remember is that in order for the hard drive to be as reliable as possible in use, it must be properly operated. Namely, to protect against overheating, shock, increased vibration of the case, frequent on or off. In addition, you do not need to use a power supply that is of poor quality.

If a failure does occur, then it is best to use the services of a laptop and computer repair company than to take any measures yourself. Or take the drive to a data recovery lab if it contained valuable information.

According to archaeologists, the desire to write down information in humans appeared about forty thousand years ago. The very first carrier was a rock. This stationary data storage had a lot of advantages (reliability, resistance to damage, large capacity, high read speed) and one drawback (labor-intensive and slow writing). Therefore, over time, more and more advanced media began to appear.

Perforated paper tape

Most early computers used paper tape wound on reels. Information was stored on it in the form of holes. Some machines, such as the Colossus Mark 1 (1944), worked with real-time tape input. Later computers, such as the Manchester Mark 1 (1949), read programs from tape and loaded them into a primitive form of electronic memory for later execution. Perforated tape has been used to write and read data for thirty years.

Punch cards

The history of punched cards goes back to the very beginning of the 19th century, when they were used to control looms. In 1890, Herman Hollerith used the punch card to process US census data. It was he who found the company (future IBM) that used such cards in their calculating machines.

In the 1950s, IBM was already using punched cards in its computers for storing and entering data, and soon other manufacturers began to use this medium. Then 80-column cards were distributed, in which a separate column was allocated for one character. Some may be surprised, but in 2002 IBM was still developing punched card technology. True, in the 21st century, the company was interested in cards the size of a postage stamp, capable of storing up to 25 million pages of information.

Magnetic tape

With the release of the first American commercial computer UNIVAC I (1951), the era of magnetic film began in the IT industry. The pioneer, as usual, was again IBM, then others "pulled themselves up". The magnetic tape was wound openly on coils and was a very thin strip of plastic coated with a magnetically sensitive substance.

The machines recorded and read data using special magnetic heads built into the reel drive. Tape was widely used in many computer models (especially mainframes and minicomputers) until the 1980s, when tape cartridges were invented.

First removable drives

In 1963, IBM introduced the first hard drive with a removable disk - IBM 1311. It was a set of interchangeable disks. Each set consisted of six 14-inch discs containing up to 2 MB of information. In the 1970s, many hard drives, such as the DEC RK05, supported such disk sets, especially minicomputer manufacturers used them to sell software.

Tape cartridges

In the 1960s, computer hardware manufacturers learned how to put rolls of magnetic tape into miniature plastic cartridges. They differed from their predecessors, bobbins, in their long life, portability and convenience. They were most popular in the 1970s and 1980s. Like spools, cartridges proved to be very flexible media: if a lot of information needed to be recorded, more tape could simply be placed in the cartridge.

Today, tape cartridges such as the 800GB LTO Ultrium are used for large-scale server support, although their popularity has declined in recent years due to the greater ease of transferring data from hard drive to hard drive.

Printing on paper

In the 1970s, personal computers gained popularity due to their relatively low cost. However, the existing ways of storing data turned out to be too expensive for many. One of the first PCs, MITS Altair, was delivered without any storage media at all. Users were asked to enter programs using special toggle switches on the front panel. Then, at the dawn of the development of personal computers, users often had to literally insert sheets of paper with
handwritten programs. Later programs began to be distributed in printed form through paper magazines.

floppy disks

In 1971, the first IBM floppy disk was born. It was an 8-inch floppy disk coated with a magnetic substance, placed in a plastic case. Users quickly realized that floppy disks were faster, cheaper, and more compact than stacks of punched cards to load data into a computer. In 1976, one of the creators of the first floppy disk, Alan Shugart, proposed its new format - 5.25 inches. In this size, it lasted until the late 1980s, until Sony's 3.5-inch floppy disks appeared. How it started...

In the late 60s, the American company IBM proposed a new storage device that used a floppy disk (floppy disk). A floppy disk works in the same way as a hard disk, but is made in the form of an elastic round plate with a plastic base coated with a magnetic compound. The disc is placed in a special flexible sleeve-cassette, which protects it from mechanical damage and dust.

A disk with an envelope is installed by the user in a special device (disk drive). In this device, it rotates inside the envelope at a speed of about 300 rpm.

To reduce friction, the inside of the envelope is covered with a special material. Through specially made slots, the magnetic read-write head of the drive contacts the surface of the disk and reads or writes the corresponding information. A floppy disk drive (FPHD) is a complex mechanical device; it requires a special electronic controller to be connected to the computer, which converts commands from the machine to the drive, monitors their execution, and also controls the data exchange process.

IBM has proposed the use of floppy disks with a diameter of 203 mm (8 English inches) and has developed a corresponding standard for these disk drives.

The new external memory device began to gain great popularity. In 1976, about 200 thousand devices were sold, in 1981 already 3-4 million, for a total of 2.3 billion dollars, and in 1984 8.2 million were delivered. NGMD in the amount of 4.2 billion dollars. Only in the USA in 1984 for NGMD 285 million floppy disks were manufactured.

Along with the rapid development of computer technology, improved and NGMD. In the early 1970s, the American inventor Alain Shugart suggested reducing the diameter of the discs to 133 mm (5.25 inches). In 1976, the Shugart Associates company he founded produced the first floppy disk drives of this size, called minidisks (minifloppies). Despite initially having less external storage, these drives were half the price of standard 203mm drives. The latter circumstance immediately attracted the attention of a wide group of PC users.

Improving the quality of recording and the quality of magnetic heads made it possible to move to floppy disks with double recording density.

The first 203 mm and 133 mm floppy disks used only one side of the disk. In order to increase the volume of an external drive, devices were developed and began to be supplied in which information was written and read from both sides of the disk. This increased the amount of memory by 2 times, and taking into account the double recording density - by 4 times.

Development and production NGMD engaged in several dozen firms in the US, Japan, Germany and other countries. These devices quickly replaced tape drives in many PC applications. Usage NGMD increased the speed of the system by an order of magnitude.

At present, external memory on floppy disks has become an integral part of the typical configuration of most educational and all professional PCs.

In what directions did further technical development go? NGMD ?

First, the reduction in the physical dimensions of drives, in particular, in height, continued. Many companies produced half-height drives, that is, two devices could already be placed in the previous case.

Secondly, successful attempts were made to reduce the diameter of the disks, and, consequently, the dimensions of the drive. Thus, the Japanese company Sony developed NGMD with discs with a diameter of 89 mm (3.5 inches). The disc is placed in a hard case 90x94 mm (3.54x3.7 inches) in size and 1.3 mm thick, equipped with a special metal "shutter". When a disk is inserted into the drive, the "shutter" automatically moves and opens a slot in the envelope through which the magnetic head interacts with the floppy disk. At double density, such a disc with one-sided recording holds 360 KB, and with two-sided recording - 720 KB.

A standard Sony drive cost about 10% more than a drive on 133 mm disks, and 89 mm disks themselves were 2-2.5 times more expensive than similar 133 mm disks. However, the small size of the disks and the drive itself, the rigid design of the disk envelope and the protection of the disk surface with the help of a "shutter" attracted to this type NGMD significant number of users. Drives with 89-mm disks with a capacity of 720 KB have found application in many portable PCs, for example, in the models of the Japanese company Toshiba - T1100, T1200, T3100, the American firms Zenith Data Systems - Z181, Bondwell Inc. - Bondwell 8 and etc. IBM in PS / 2 series PC models uses NGMD c disks with a diameter of 89 mm, a volume of 720 KB and 1.44 MB.

Thirdly, through the use of new technical means and technologies, a number of firms have developed NGMD increased memory capacity.

For example, IBM in PC AT used drives on 133-mm disks with a capacity of 1.2 MB of formatted memory. By moving to a higher density of tracks on the disk, it was possible to more than double the volume of the external drive of the PC.

The Japanese firm Hitachi-Maxwell announced the development of 133 mm floppy disks with 19 MB of memory per disk. In a short time, the volume of 89 mm disks has grown from 360 KB to 1.44 MB.

By the beginning of 1987, 133 mm disks for PCs from IBM were the most common in the world, and drives on disks with a diameter of 203 mm had practically ceased to be produced. The 89mm market is growing very fast NGMD.

According to the firm Dataquest (USA), the production of 133-mm drives grew from 8.2 million in 1985 to 11 million in 1987, and then fell by 1991 to 7.3 million. . At the same time, the production of 89 mm drives increased from 603,000 units in 1985 to 14 million units in 1991, i.e., by the end of the 1980s, it exceeded the production of 133 mm drives.

The cost of a standard IBM PC drive with 360 KB 133 mm disks was $65 in the US in mid-1987, and $150 with 720 KB 89 mm disks.

Compact cassettes

The compact cassette was invented by Philips, which thought of putting two small rolls of magnetic tape into a plastic case. It was in this format that audio recordings were made in the 1960s. HP used such cassettes in its HP 9830 desktop (1972), but at first such cassettes were not very popular as digital media. Then the searchers for inexpensive storage media nevertheless turned their eyes towards cassettes, which, with their light hand, remained in demand until the early 1980s. data on them, by the way, could be loaded from a regular audio player.

Since the advent of the first magnetic data storage device (IBM RAMAC), surface recording density has increased by 25% per year, and since the early 1990s by 60%. The development and introduction of magnetoresistive (1991) and giant magnetoresistive (1997) heads further accelerated the increase in surface recording density. In the 45 years that have passed since the advent of the first magnetic data storage devices, the surface recording density has increased by more than 5 million times.

In modern drives with a size of 3.5 inches, the value of this parameter is 10-20 Gb / inch 2, and in experimental models it reaches 40 Gb / inch 2. This allows the production of drives with a capacity of more than 400 GB.

ROM cartridges

A ROM cartridge is a board that consists of read-only memory (ROM) and a connector housed in a hard shell. Scope of cartridges - computer games and programs. So, in 1976, Fairchild released a ROM cartridge for recording software for the Fairchild Channel F video set-top box. Soon, home computers such as the Atari 800 (1979) or TI-99 / 4 (1979) were adapted to use ROM cartridges.

ROM cartridges were easy to use but relatively expensive, which is why they died.

Great Floppy Experiments

In the 1980s, many companies tried to create an alternative to the 3.5-inch floppy disk. One such invention (pictured above in the center) can hardly be called a floppy disk even at a stretch: the ZX Microdrive cartridge consisted of a huge roll of magnetic tape, like an eight-track cassette. Another experimenter, Apple, created the FileWare floppy disk (right) that came with Apple's first Lisa computer - the worst device in the company's history according to Network World, as well as a 3-inch Compact Disk (lower left) and a now rare 2-inch floppy disk.

LT-1 (top left), used exclusively in a 1989 Zenith Minisport laptop. The rest of the experiments culminated in products that became niche and failed to replicate the success of their 5.25-inch and 3.5-inch predecessors.

optical disc

Originally used as a digital audio storage medium, the CD owes its birth to a joint project between Sony and Philips and first appeared on the market in 1982. Digital data is stored on this plastic medium in the form of micro-cavities on its mirror surface, and information is read using a laser head.
As it turned out, digital CDs are the best suited for storing computer data, and soon the same Sony and Philips finalized the novelty.

So in 1985 the world learned about CD-ROMs.

Over the next 25 years, the optical disc has undergone a lot of changes, its evolutionary chain includes DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-ray. A significant milestone was the introduction of the CD-Recordable (CD-R) in 1988, which allowed users to write data to a disc themselves. In the late 1990s, optical discs finally fell in price, and finally pushed floppy disks into the background.

Magneto-optical media

Like CDs, magneto-optical discs are "read" by a laser. However, unlike conventional CDs and CD-Rs, most magneto-optical media allow data to be applied and erased repeatedly. This is achieved through the interaction of the magnetic process and the laser during data recording. The first magneto-optical disk was included with the NeXT computer (1988, bottom right photo), and its capacity was 256 MB. The best-known medium of this type is the Sony MiniDisc audio disc (top center, 1992). He also had a “brother” for storing digital data, which was called MD-DATA (top left). Magneto-optical disks are still produced today, but due to their low capacity and relatively high cost, they have become niche products.

Iomega and Zip Drive

Iomega entered the media market in the 1980s with the launch of Bernoulli Box magnetic disc cartridges ranging from 10 to 20 MB.

A more recent interpretation of this technology was embodied in the so-called Zip media (1994), which contained up to 100 MB of information on an inexpensive 3.5-inch disk. The format was liked by its affordable price and good capacity, and Zip disks remained on the crest of popularity until the late 1990s. However, CD-Rs, which were already available at the time, could store up to 650 MB, and when their price dropped to a few cents apiece, sales of Zip disks fell catastrophically. Iomega made an attempt to salvage the technology and developed discs in 250 and 750 MB sizes, but CD-Rs had already completely conquered the market by that time. So Zip became history.

floppy disks

The first super floppy was released by Insight Peripherals in 1992. A 3.5-inch disk held 21 MB of information. Unlike other media, this format was compatible with earlier traditional 3.5-inch floppy disk drives. The secret of the high efficiency of such drives lay in the combination of a floppy disk and optics, that is, data was recorded in a magnetic medium using a laser head, while providing more accurate recording and more tracks, respectively, more space. In the late 1990s, two new formats appeared - Imation LS-120 SuperDisk (120 MB, bottom right) and Sony HiFD (150 MB, top right). The novelties became serious competitors for the Iomega Zip drive, but in the end, the CD-R format won everyone.

Chaos in the world of portable media

The resounding success of the Zip Drive in the mid-1990s spawned a slew of similar devices that hoped to snatch a piece of the Zip market. Among Iomega's main competitors is SyQuest, which first fragmented its own market segment and then ruined its product line with excessive diversity - SyJet, SparQ, EZFlyer and EZ135. Another serious, but "obscure" competitor is Castlewood Orb, which came up with a Zip-like disk with a capacity of 2.2 GB.

Finally, Iomega itself made an attempt to supplement the Zip drive with other types of removable media - from large removable hard drives (1- and 2-gigabyte Jaz Drives) to a miniature 40 MB Clik drive. But none have reached the heights of Zip.

Flash is coming

In the early 1980s, Toshiba invented NAND flash memory, but the technology only became popular a decade later, following the advent of digital cameras and PDAs. At this time, it began to be implemented in various forms - from large credit cards (intended for use in early handhelds) to CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Secure Digital, Memory Stick and xD Picture Card cards.

Flash memory cards are convenient, first of all, because they have no moving parts. In addition, they are economical, durable and relatively inexpensive with an ever-increasing amount of memory. The first CF cards held 2 MB, but now their capacity reaches 128 GB.

How much less

The IBM/Hitachi promo slide shows a tiny Microdrive. It appeared in 2003 and for some time won the hearts of computer users.

Debuted in 2001, the iPod and other media players feature similar spinning disc devices, but manufacturers quickly became disillusioned with the drive because it was too fragile, power-hungry, and small. So this format is almost "buried".

1956 - IBM 350 hard drive as part of the first mass-produced IBM 305 RAMAC computer. The drive occupied a box the size of a large refrigerator and had a weight of 971 kg, and the total memory capacity of 50 thin disks with a diameter of 610 mm rotating in it covered with pure iron was about 5 million 6-bit bytes (3.5 MB in terms of 8-bit bytes) .

And here's the thing about hard drives.
* 1980 - the first 5.25-inch Winchester, Shugart ST-506, 5 MB.
* 1981 - 5.25-inch Shugart ST-412, 10 MB.
* 1986 - SCSI, ATA(IDE) standards.
* 1991 - maximum capacity 100 MB.
* 1995 - maximum capacity 2 GB.
* 1997 - maximum capacity 10 GB.
* 1998 - UDMA/33 and ATAPI standards.
* 1999 - IBM releases Microdrive with a capacity of 170 and 340 MB.
* 2002 - ATA/ATAPI-6 standard and drives over 137 GB.
* 2003 - the appearance of SATA.
* 2005 - maximum capacity 500 GB.
* 2005 - Serial ATA 3G (or SATA II) standard.
* 2005 - the emergence of SAS (Serial Attached SCSI).
* 2006 - application of the perpendicular recording method in commercial drives.
* 2006 - the appearance of the first "hybrid" hard drives containing a block of flash memory.
* 2007 - Hitachi introduces the first commercial 1TB drive.
* 2009 - based on 500 GB Western Digital plates, then Seagate Technology LLC released 2 TB models.
* 2009 - Western Digital announced the creation of 2.5-inch HDDs with a capacity of 1 TB (recording density - 333 GB on one plate)
* 2009 - the emergence of the SATA 3.0 standard (SATA 6G).

The advent of USB

In 1998, the era of USB began. The undeniable convenience of USB devices has made them an almost integral part of the lives of all PC users. Over the years, they decrease in physical size, but become more and more capacious and cheaper. Especially popular appeared in 2000 "flash drives", or USB thumb drives (from the English thumb - "thumb"), so named for their size - the size of a human finger. Due to their large capacity and small size, USB drives have become, perhaps, the best storage medium invented by mankind.

Transition to virtuality

Over the past fifteen years, local networks and the Internet have been gradually replacing portable storage media from the lives of PC users. Since today almost any computer has access to the global network, users rarely need to transfer data to external devices or transfer data to another computer. Nowadays, wires and electronic signals are responsible for the transfer of information. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless standards make physical computer connections unnecessary.