Data Storage Devices

3.5-inch Floppy Disk

• A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles. They are read and written by a floppy disk drive (FDD).

• Floppy disks, initially as 8-inch (200 mm) media and later in 5.25-inch (133 mm) and 3.5-inch (89 mm) sizes, were a ubiquitous form of data storage and exchange from the mid-1970s well into the first decade of the 21st century.[1]

Zip Disk

• The Zip Disk is a medium-capacity removable disk storage system that was introduced by Iomega in late 1994. Originally, Zip disks launched with capacities of 100 MB, but later versions increased this to first 250 MB and then 750 MB.

• The format became the most popular of the super-floppy type products which filled a niche in the late 1990s portable storage market. However it was never popular enough to replace the 3.5-inch floppy disk nor could ever match the storage size available on rewritable CDs and later rewritable DVDs.

Mini CD

• A MiniDisc (MD) is a magneto-optical disc-based data storage device initially intended for storage of up to 74 minutes and, later, 80 minutes, of digitized audio. In the form of Hi-MD, it has also developed into a general-purpose storage medium.

• MiniDisc was announced by Sony in September 1992 and released that November for sale in Japan and in December for the USA and Europe.

Tape Drive

• A tape drive is a data storage device that reads and performs digital recording, writes data on a magnetic tape. Magnetic tape data storage is typically used for offline, archival data storage. Tape media generally has a favorable unit cost and long archival stability.

• A tape drive provides sequential access storage, unlike a disk drive, which provides random access storage. A disk drive can move to any position on the disk in a few milliseconds, but a tape drive must physically wind tape between reels to read any one particular piece of data.

Cd-Rw

• A CD-RW (Compact Disc-ReWritable) is a rewritable optical disc. It was introduced in 1997, and was known as "CD-Writable" during development. It was preceded by the CD-MO, which was never commercially released.

• CD-RW disc require a more sensitive laser optics. Also, CD-RWs cannot be read in some CD-ROM drives built prior to 1997. CD-ROM drives will bear a "MultiRead" certification to show compatibility. CD-RW discs need to be blanked before reuse.

Cd-R

• CD-R is a recordable compact disc format. (Compact Disc Recordable Compact Disk Recordable =). You can record in multiple sessions, but the aggregate information can not be erased or overwritten, instead you must use the space left by the preceding session.

Recorders now come to burn CD-R 52x, a 7800 KB / s.For many computers is difficult to maintain this rate of recording and therefore the recorders have systems that allow the recording to pick up a cut on the arrival of data.

Dvd-Rw

• A DVD-RW disc is a rewritable optical disc with equal storage capacity to a DVD-R, typically 4.7 GB. The format was developed by Pioneer in November 1999 and has been approved by the DVD Forum. The smaller Mini DVD-RW holds 1.46 GB, with a diameter of 8 cm.

• The primary advantage of DVD-RW over DVD-R is the ability to erase and rewrite to a DVD-RW disc. According to Pioneer, DVD-RW discs may be written to about 1,000 times before needing replacement.

Mini DVD

• MiniDVD (Mini DVD or miniDVD) is a DVD disc having 8 cm in diameter.

• The 8 cm optical disc format was originally used for music CD singles, hence the commonly used names CD single and miniCD. Similarly, the manufactured 8 cm DVDs were originally used for music videos and as such became known as DVD single.

Flash Memories

Flash Memories

• Flash memory is a non-volatile computer storage chip that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. It was developed from EEPROM (electrically erasable programmable read-only memory) and must be erased in fairly large blocks before these can be rewritten with new data. The high density NAND type must also be programmed and read in (smaller) blocks, or pages, while the NOR type allows a single machine word (byte) to be written or read independently.

Secure Digital

• Flash memory is a non-volatile computer storage chip that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. It was developed from EEPROM (electrically erasable programmable read-only memory) and must be erased in fairly large blocks before these can be rewritten with new data. The high density NAND type must also be programmed and read in (smaller) blocks, or pages, while the NOR type allows a single machine word (byte) to be written or read independently.

Micro SD

• MicroSD or TransFlash cards correspond to a format of flash memory card smaller than MiniSD, developed by SanDisk, adopted by the SD Card Association [1] under the name "microSD" in July 2005. It measures only 15 × 11 × 1 mm, which gives an area of 165 mm ². This is three and a half times smaller than miniSD, which was until the advent of smaller microSD format SD card, and is about one tenth the volume of an SD card. Its transfer rates are not high, however, companies like SanDisk have worked on it, leading to versions that support read speeds up to 10 Mb / s. Currently, there are already microSD cards made by Panasonic that reach 90 Mb / s read and 80 Mb / s write, but are still unaffordable prices for most of the public.

Compact Flash

• CompactFlash (CF) is a mass storage device format used in portable electronic devices. Most CompactFlash devices contain flash memory in a standardized enclosure. The format was first specified and produced by SanDisk in 1994.[4] The physical format is now used for a variety of devices.

• CompactFlash became the most successful of the early memory card formats, surpassing Miniature Card, SmartMedia, and PC Card Type I in popularity. Subsequent formats, such as MMC/SD, various Memory Stick formats, and xD-Picture Card offered stiff competition. Most of these cards are smaller than CompactFlash while offering comparable capacity and speed. Proprietary memory card formats for use in professional audio and video, such as P2 and SxS, are physically larger, faster, and costlier.

Multimedia Card

• The MultiMediaCard (MMC) is a flash memory memory card standard. Unveiled in 1997 by SanDisk and Siemens AG, it is based on Toshiba's NAND-based flash memory, and is therefore much smaller than earlier systems based on Intel NOR-based memory such as CompactFlash. MMC is about the size of a postage stamp: 24 mm × 32 mm × 1.4 mm. MMC originally used a 1-bit serial interface, but newer versions of the specification allow transfers of 4 or 8 bits at a time. It has been more or less superseded by SD (Secure Digital) card, but still sees significant use because MMCs can be used in most devices that support SD cards.

Smart Media

• The Smart Media format was launched in the summer of 1995[citation needed] to compete with the Mini Card, CompactFlash, and PC card formats[citation needed]. Although memory cards are nowadays associated with digital cameras, digital audio players, PDAs, and similar devices, Smart Media was pitched as a successor to the computer floppy disk. Indeed, the format was originally named Solid State Floppy Disk Card (SSFDC).[1] The SSFDC forum, a consortium aiming to promote SSFDC as an industry standard, was founded in April 1996, consisting of 37 initial members.[2]

Mini MMC

• A memory card is a memory chip that holds its content without power. There are different types of cards.The term was coined by Flash Memory Toshiba, for its ability to delete "in a flash" (instant). EEPROM derivatives are erased in fixed blocks, instead of bytes alone. The block sizes usually range from 512 bytes to 256KB.los flash chips are less expensive and provide higher bit densities. In addition, the flash is becoming an alternative for it can be easily upgraded EPROM.

XD

• The cards were developed by Olympus and Fujifilm, and introduced into the market in July 2002. Toshiba Corporation and Samsung Electronics manufacture the cards for Olympus and Fujifilm. xD cards are sold under other brands, including Kodak, SanDisk, PNY, and Lexar, but are not branded with the respective companies' logos, except for Kodak. Because of its higher cost and limited usage in products other than digital cameras, xD has lost ground to SD, which is broadly used by cellular phones, personal computers, digital audio players and most other digital camera manufacturers.

Memory Pen

• The USB mass storage device class, otherwise known as USB MSC or UMS, is a protocol that allows a Universal Serial Bus (USB) device to become accessible to a host computing device, to enable file transfers between the two. To the host device, the USB device appears similar to an external hard drive, enabling drag-and-drop file transfers.

• The USB mass storage device class comprises a set of computing communications protocols defined by the USB Implementers Forum that run on the Universal Serial Bus. The standard provides an interface to a variety of storage devices.