Computer data storage
Computers are great for storing, organizing and retrieving data of all types, whether it be pictures of your holidays, music, or your year end accounts. As computers become more widely used in society and more powerful people are finding new uses for them, and more hardware solutions are being invented all the time.
Several years ago not many people would have had a computer powerful enough to store their music collection on, never mind one that could do that, and store photos and films too! It is truly becoming the center for all your media.
This part of the website aims to give an insight into computer data storage, devices used, and purposes they may be put to.
Magnetic Disk Drives (or disc drives)
Floppy disc
Floppy discs have reached the limits of their uses and become outdated. They cannot hold as much information as a CD or DVD at only around 1 megabyte (1/700th of what a CD can hold!) and cost more to manufacturer. Most people now use a USB pen drive instead for portable information, and an extra external hard drive or DVDs for backups.
I still have a floppy drive in my PC so I can read old floppy's and get at my old data. The main use for floppy drives these days are for emergency booting purposes.
Hard disc
Hard drives are where your data goes for long-term storage. Today, the average hard drive size is 80 GB, though many people use more than that. If you are just starting out and don't know how much space you'll need, get 80 GB for now since you can always add on another hard drive for more space in the future.
Hard disc - check out our guide to hard drives
USB Pen Drives
USB pen drives have become more common as they replace floppy drives as the quick method to backup or transport data. Since they use flash memory, they are very small and can fit on your key chain. The common size is 256 MB, though they come in sizes as big as 1 GB.
Optical Disk Drives (or disc drives)
Optical or Media drives include CD (Compact Disc) and DVD (Digital Versatile Disc).
Try getting an optical writable drive. CD-RW is very common today, but if you can, get a DVD-RW that supports DVD-R and DVD+R media. Dual layer DVD recorders can store more data per disc, although you must buy special dual-layer DVD discs as well - these are now becoming more affordable.