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Hi-Tek Peru - Your technology connection in Lima
Where to store your data?
By F. P. Nagle

During the past year, with a month or two off while traveling, I've written about all the different devices and services you may use to help improve your usage of some of the high tech items available today. The rule used to be “buy a supply of batteries to power all the items we had,” but now it's “buy more storage.” All these devices enable us to collect and aggregate lots of data, and now we need a place to keep those pieces that are important to us - photos, songs, articles, electronic books, etc.

The first computers came with “floppy” disks that held 180K, 360K (double sided) or 720K (double sided/double density) of data, enormous for it's time, while today's computers ship with hard drives of 30 gigabytes or more of storage. But of course, the corollary of this is that data grows to fill the available space. Programs used to consume less than a megabyte of memory, while today, Microsoft Office will consume hundreds of megabytes of storage, and that doesn't include all the graphics which can be added along with their storage requirements.

Photos used to be printed at the film / camera shop and today they've turned digital, meaning added storage space requirements. Video cameras have become digital as well and a 3 minute short film clip can require 5 to 10 megabytes of storage, and this is at the “lowest” resolution.

If we take the example of photos alone, the ideal is to review the multiple pictures taken (I know I take extra to make sure I get a good one) and then eliminate (delete) all the bad shots. But how many of us really go back and eliminate the bad shots? I know I don't, I consider the cost of storage to be minimal compared to the amount of time it would take to review all the pictures I've taken. So how do we store and use all this information?

This month we'll look at some of the “short term” options available today.

1. The “old” reliable floppy disk. This has become a little less “floppy” with a hardened plastic case, its capacity has been increased to 1.44mb or 2.88mb (double density) and it can be used in an emergency when minimal storage is required. But some of today's cameras take pictures that require more than 2.88mb for one photo alone! Many computer vendors don't even include a floppy drive as a basic item; it must be “added” as an “upgrade”. So say goodbye to floppies.
2. The hard disk. What started out with 10mb of storage has today grown to monster proportions with many hard disks exceeding 200 GB of storage. This is a reasonable mode of “intermediate” storage for the most current set of photos, film clips and of course for the programs that we use daily to manipulate all the data we've accumulated. For long term or portable storage this media is not the best. It can be large and unwieldy, and in most cases requires a computer to be attached to be able to read or see the data it contains. Additionally, because it is a “mechanical” device and uses moving parts it can be prone to failure at some future date, meaning all the data it contains could be lost for all time.
3. The “flash / compact flash” card. This storage medium started out looking like a good short term storage solution, but as devices became smaller its form factor proved to be “too large.” It is still used today, mostly in the “compact flash” size, but smaller devices requiring more capacity have caused it to be moved further into oblivion.
4. Secure Digital / Multimedia Cards (SD/MMC), Memory Stick (Sony proprietary storage MS). These new form factors have increased the storage boundary while reducing the overall size. These devices started out with as little as 4mb of capacity, and today are in the 4GB range and growing. A new Samsung laptop in the pipeline is supposed to contain a 32GB flash drive which replaces a Hard Disk and reduces power consumption to 5% of what a hard disk requires, thereby increasing battery life. (Note: There have been other form factors similar to SD/MMC/MS, but they have not been as widely used and so are not discussed in detail. XD and SmartMedia are two that come to mind.)
5. The Universal Serial Bus (USB) flash or thumb drive. This “non-mechanical” storage medium can be an excellent short (and possibly long) term solution to data storage. It is less prone to failure, but electronics, including electronic storage, have been known to fail, which could result in inadvertent data loss of important information. For transferring photos, film clips, work documents and key data this medium is ideal. You can copy the select data from a computer, move to a second computer and load the data onto the new computer, or use it as an external disk drive.

All the devices I've mentioned so far are good for short term data storage. They are currently limited in capacity, can be prone to failure, and can become costly if you wish to keep “all” your data indefinitely. Items 4 and 5 are the most popular today in the portable market, and are increasing in capacity while prices continue to drop. A 2GB SD card can be purchased for $99, and with discounts and special offers this price often times drops to under $50. They are ideal for the newest MP3 players, digital cameras - both still and video, and for extended storage on “Palm” style computers.

As with all types of storage, a device to “read” the data is required. If you had all your pictures backed up on a 5 1/4” floppy disk, how would you read them today? Do you have such a disk drive available? Would you be forced to find someone who could read and transfer your data, or forget about what you had stored on the disk? What about all the tape backups that have been made over the years? Is such a tape reader available today? Just like the 45's and LP records of the not to distant past, are we relegating our memories to formats that will be unreadable in the future? As with anything electronic, only the future will tell, but in the meantime it is certainly something to consider when looking at where you keep your data.

When it comes to long term storage, other media need to be looked at, and that will be the subject of next month's Hi-Tek Peru.

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