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You want to make money by selling with an internet business? Well fortunately for you, I'm here to give you some tips (ten of them to be exact) so you can succeed with your internet business and make a nice profit.
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Articles » Computers » Data Recovery » What Does the Future Hold for Digital Storage?
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- Article Views: 394
- Word Count: 728
- Date Contributed: Jan 09, 2008
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| What Does the Future Hold for Digital Storage? |
From historical Greek stories which described man’s attempts to fly to the modern-day jetliners and the individual jet backpack (witnessed during the Los Angeles Olympics), the dreams of fantasy have been woken up to reality.
From room-sized computers to computers cryptic in the palm of your hand, technology has advanced from previously incomprehensible feats to modern-day realities that are indispensable to everyday life.
The first computers in the 1930s and 1940s performed basic arithmetic calculations. Modern computers can even prepare your lunch or perform precision surgery. The immobile initial computers have progressed to the point of travelling through our solar system. From a few kilobytes of storage memory, sub 100 MHz speeds of the microprocessor and software capable of only interpreting cryptic programming commands, information technology has made giant leaps to terabytes of storage, 3000 MHz microprocessor speeds and graphical user interface software capable of being used by kids.
From the 1960s there has been talk of using light to aid in data storage. The laser beams used in CDs and DVDs made this fanciful notion of using light, to store and access data, an everyday reality. This was the stuff that every respectable science fiction movie featured. DVDs can store a maximum of 16 gigabytes of data in a diameter of just12 centimeters and 1.2 millimeters thickness.
Shortly, the world will witness the arrival of a new data storage technology using laser light. Enter the world of Holographic memory. With a phenomenal surge in the demand for reliable and high capacity storage, a holographic storage system may be the answer to the increasing demands on storage. A holographic memory could store about 1 terabyte of data, in an area the size of a grain of sand. That’s almost the data of a 1000 CDs.
Playing with the light has yielded more and more storage space, only if one looked at it properly. Unlike hard drives, CDs and DVDs which store data on a recording surface, holographic memory goes a bit deeper, right under the skin of the surface. So, it uses the density of the medium as well, to store the data and access it. Moreover, since it involves light beams, it is capable of reading and writing data, in parallel, using a single flash of light compared to the current technology of reading one bit at a time. A complete DVD’s data could be transferred in less than a minute. Pure magic!
Next in the line of emerging technologies is the use of atoms (yes, the same atoms that are available in molecules) to stack boggling amounts of data. In fact, in the early 1990s, IBM used arrays of atomic-force based probes to spell out the word ‘IBM’ (that’s an ad you could not have possibly seen!) and have been focusing on this area with their ‘Millipede’ project. Another company has already unveiled another variation of the same technology (without the ad of course!) in 2005, wherein they claim that their probes (tiny instruments used to read and write data into atoms) can store the contents of 25 DVDs in an area the size of a postage stamp! No power required. All those existing Flash memory storage devices have been given their due warning!
A surprise package which is touted to take on the huge combined following for SRAM, DRAM, EEPROM, Flash memory and still win by a comfortable margin, is the MRAM technology (Magneto-resistive Random Access Memory). This has been in development since 1990, but due to prohibitive costs and established markets for the other types of memory, it is yet to be commercially exploited.
MRAM has a similar density as DRAM which allows it to pack a number of storage cells into a given area and can be produced cheaply. MRAM does not suffer from heavy power consumption or the volatility of its memory contents, if power is cut off, unlike the DRAM. It also has a low power consumption and faster processing time, and does not degrade in performance (over the years) in comparison to Flash memory.
Against the SRAM’s speed, the MRAM comes in second, but makes up for that with its lower production cost.
‘Consumer, consumer on the wall, which among them is the best of all?’ Only time will tell.
James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. If you are concerned about data loss and would like more information on Data Recovery see http://www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk
Article Source: UnArchived Articles
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