Technological FOUNDATIONS FOR CONVERGENCE(1)
1.
2.
3.
4.
DIGITIZATION/DIGITAL STORAGE
Networking/Broadband
Wireless, Wi-Fi
Spectrum management
1. DIGITIZATION
A. Definition of Digitization
 What does Digitization mean?
Digitization is the process of converting analog signals or information of any form into a
digital format that can be understood by computer systems or electronic devices. The term is
used when converting information, like text, images or voices and sounds, into binary code.
Digitized information is easier to store, access and transmit, and digitization is used by a
number of consumer electronic devices.(Techopedia)
https://www.techopedia.com/definition/6846/digitization)
Digitization process involves capturing analog signals and storing the results in digital form.
This is usually done via sensors, which sense analog signals like light and sound, and
transform them to their equivalent digital forms via an analog-to-digital converter chip or a
whole circuit dedicated to converting a specific analog signal.
This works by converting the continuous stream of signal or data found in most analog data
types into discontinuous values. These are then sampled at regular intervals to produce a
digitalized output.
For example, an audio file is generally sampled in rates of 44.1 kHz to 192 kHz. If an audio
file is sampled at a rate of 48.1 kHz it is sampled 48,000 times per second. The digitization
process is more effective and of higher quality if performed at higher sampling rates.(
 Digitization vs. Digitalization, What does it mean?
2016/10/8
https://www.kbz.com/blog/digitization-vs-digitalization-what-does-it-mean
‘Digitization’ and ‘digitalization’ are two conceptual terms with closely associated meanings
that are causing confusion among business and technology professionals. The lack of clarity
is understandable given the amount of information reaching us each day surrounding the
topic of digital transformation. I had been interested in the definition of the words for some
time and after a lengthy discussion among industry friends took a dive into the topic to
uncover the differences.
The terms ‘digitization’ and ‘digitalization’ are not new. According to the Oxford English
Dictionary the first usage of the two terms in reference to technology date back to the middle
of the 1950’s. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) refers to ‘digitization’ as “the action or
process of digitizing; the conversion of analogue data into digital form.” ‘Digitalization’ refers
to “the adoption or increase in use of digital or computer technology by an organization,
industry, country etc.”
1
Expanding upon the OED’s definitions we’d define ‘digitization’ as the process of
transforming streams of information into digital pieces and ‘digitalization’ as the ways in
which varying domains, social, business or otherwise, are reorganized and structured
around digital media and communication arrangements. Still confused? Keep reading and I’ll
clear things up for you.
To apply the definitions to our world you may think about the example process of automating
and transferring documents from paper to digital formats as digitization. Imagine yourself
going through the card catalog at your local library. Now think about the process of taking
that library of handwritten information and transferring the info to a digital format and file.
Automating and making previously manual processes digital, this is what digitization is all
about.
Digitalization allows us to take our now automated processes and digital bits and pieces and
apply gathered data and metrics to optimize business outcomes. Using information received
from multiple channels like mobile devices, social media platforms, operational data and
even GPS devices provide greater insight into pain points and areas that may benefit from a
little TLC. Collecting data and using information in real-time allows organizations to make
informed decisions surrounding every aspect of the business. Starting to make sense?
Cisco’s Digital Network Architecture takes the digitized world and gives your business “both
a roadmap to digitization and a path to recognize immediate benefits of network automation,
assurance and security (Rob Soderbery, Cisco).” Cisco DNA is an open, extensible,
software-driven architecture that rapidly delivers services to enable IT to innovate faster.
Beyond this, DNA allows for reduced cost and complexities, lower risks and helps
businesses to meet compliance. Now you’re getting the picture.
Next time you find yourself in a discussion surrounding ‘digitization’ and ‘digitalization’, you
can feel confident knowing the different meaning of each term while understanding how the
two concepts fit together to form the total package of Digital Transformation. You can also
feel confident knowing ScanSource|KBZ has the business resources to help you make this
journey to digital transformation to Cisco’s Digital Network Architecture.
 Analog and Digital by Chris Woodford(April 4, 2016)
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/analog-and-digital.html
Back in the late 1970s, one of the most exciting things you could own was a digital watch.
Instead of trying to figure out the time from slowly rotating hands, as you had to do with an
old-style analog watch, you simply read the numbers off a digital display. Since then, we've
got more used to the idea of digital technology. Now pretty much everything seems to be
digital, from television and radio to music players, cameras, cellphones, and even books.
What's the difference between analog and digital technology? Which is best? Let's take a
closer look!
Photo: Analog and digital technology: Left: This elegant Swiss watch shows the time with
hands moving round a dial. Right: Large digital clocks are quick and easy for runners to read.
Photo by Jhi L. Scott courtesy of US Navy.
What is analog technology?
2
People accept digital things easily enough, often by thinking of them as electronic,
computerized, and perhaps not even worth trying to understand. But the concept of analog
technology often seems more baffling—especially when people try to explain it in pages like
this! So what's it all about?
What does analog actually mean?
If you have an analog watch, it tells the time with hands that sweep around a dial: the
position of the hands is a measurement of the time. How much the hands move is directly
related to what time it is. So if the hour hand sweeps across two segments of the dial, it's
showing that twice as much time has elapsed compared to if it had moved only one segment.
That sounds incredibly obvious, but it's much more subtle than it first seems. The point is
that the hand's movements over the dial are a way of representing passing time. It's not the
same thing as time itself: it's a representation or an analogy of time. The same is true when
you measure something with a ruler. If you measure the length of your finger and mark it on
the surface of a wooden ruler, that little strip of wood or plastic you're looking at (a small
segment of the ruler) is the same length as your finger. It isn't your finger, of course—it's a
representation of your finger: another analogy. That's really what the term analog means.
Photo: This dial thermometer shows temperature with a pointer and dial. If you prefer a more
subtle definition, it uses its pointer to show a representation (or analogy) of the temperature
on the dial.
Analog measurements
Until computers started to dominate science and technology in the early decades of the 20th
century, virtually every measuring instrument was analog. If you wanted to measure an
electric current, you did it with a moving-coil meter that had a little pointer moving over a dial.
The more the pointer moved up the dial, the higher the current in your circuit. The pointer
was an analogy of the current. All kinds of other measuring devices worked in a similar way,
from weighing machines and speedometers to sound-level meters and seismographs
(earthquake-plotting machines).
Analog information
However, analog technology isn't just about measuring things or using dials and pointers.
When we say something is analog, we often simply mean that it's not digital: the job it does,
or the information it handles, doesn't involve processing numbers electronically. An old-style
film camera is sometimes referred to as example of analog technology. You capture an
image on a piece of transparent plastic "film" coated with silver-based chemicals, which
3
react to light. When the film is developed (chemically processed in a lab), it's used to print a
representation of the scene you photographed. In other words, the picture you get is an
analogy of the scene you wanted to record. The same is true of recording sounds with an
old-fashioned cassette recorder. The recording you make is a collection of magnetized areas
on a long reel of plastic tape. Together, they represent an analogy of the sounds you
originally heard.
What is digital technology?
Digital is entirely different. Instead of storing words, pictures, and sounds as representations
on things like plastic film or magnetic tape, we first convert the information into numbers
(digits) and display or store the numbers instead.
Digital measurements
Many scientific instruments now measure things digitally (automatically showing readings on
LCD displays) instead of using analog pointers and dials. Thermometers, blood-pressure
meters, multimeters (for measuring electric current and voltage), and bathroom scales are
just a few of the common measuring devices that are now likely to give you an instant digital
reading. Digital displays are generally quicker and easier to read than analog ones; whether
they're more accurate depends on how the measurement is actually made and displayed.
Photo: A small LCD display on a pocket calculator. Most digital devices now use LCD
displays like this, which are cheap to manufacture and easy to read.
Digital information
All kinds of everyday technology also works using digital rather than analog technology.
Cellphones, for example, transmit and receive calls by converting the sounds of a person's
voice into numbers and then sending the numbers from one place to another in the form of
radio waves. Used this way, digital technology has many advantages. It's easier to store
information in digital form and it generally takes up less room. You'll need several shelves to
store 400 vinyl, analog LP records, but with an MP3 player you can put the same amount of
music in your pocket! Electronic book (ebook) readers are similar: typically, they can store a
couple of thousand books—around 50 shelves worth—in a space smaller than a single
paperback! Digital information is generally more secure: cellphone conversations are
encrypted before transmission—something easy to do when information is in numeric form
to begin with. You can also edit and play about with digital information very easily. Few of us
are talented enough to redraw a picture by Rembrandt or Leonardo in a slightly different
4
style. But anyone can edit a photo (in digital form) in a computer graphics program, which
works by manipulating the numbers that represent the image rather than the image itself.
Photo: Ebooks owe their advantages to digital technology: they can store the equivalent of
thousands of paper books in a thin electronic device that fits in your book. Not only that, they
can download digital books from the Internet, which saves an analog trek to your local
bookstore or library!
Which is better, analog or digital?
Just because digital technology has advantages, that doesn't mean it's always better than
analog. An analog watch might be far more accurate than a digital one if it uses a highprecision movement (gears and springs) to measure time passing, and if it has a sweeping
second hand it will represent the time more precisely than a digital watch whose display
shows only hours and minutes. Surprisingly, analog watches can also keep time better than
quartz ones: the day-to-day variations in a mechanical, analog watch tend to cancel one
another out, while those in an electronic quartz watch tend to compound one another (here's
why). Generally, the most expensive watches in the world are analog ones (of course, that's
partly because people prefer the way they look), though the world's most accurate atomic
clocks show time with digital displays.
One interesting question is whether information stored in digital form will last as long as
analog information. Museums still have paper documents (and ones written on clay or stone)
that are thousands of years old, but no-one has the first email or cellphone conversation.
Open any book on the history of photography and you'll see reproductions of early photos
taken by Niepce, Daguerre, and Fox-Talbot. But you won't see any pictures of the first digital
photo: even though it was much more recent, probably no-one knows what it was or who
took it! Lots of people own and cherish plastic LP records that are decades old, but no-one
attaches the same importance to disposable MP3 music files. A lot of information recorded
on early computer memory devices is completely impossible to read with newer computers;
even floppy disks, commonplace as recently as the mid-1990s, are impossible to read on
modern computers that no longer have built-in floppy drives.
That's why, though the future may be digital, analog technology will always have its place!
Photo: An early analog computer from 1949: machines like this represented numbers with
analog dials, levers, belts, and gears rather than (digital) numbers stored in electronic
memories. Picture courtesy of NASA on the Commons.
What is sampling?
5
It's easy to convert analog information into digital: you do it every time you make a digital
photo, record sound on your computer, or speak over a cellphone. The process is called
analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) or, more informally, sampling. Sampling simply means
"measuring at regular intervals"—and it's easiest to understand with an example.
Let's suppose I'm talking to you on my cellphone. The sound of my voice is really waves of
energy that travel through the air to the phone's microphone, which converts them into
electrical signals. The sound waves and the signals are both continuously varying
waveforms—they're analog information— and they look like the upper graph in the diagram.
A cellphone transmits sound in digital form, so those analog waves need to be converted
into numbers. How does that happen? A circuit inside the phone called an analog to digital
converter measures the size of the waves many times each second and stores each
measurement as a number. You can see in the middle figure that I've turned the first graph
into a very approximate bar chart. If each bar represents one second of time, we can
represent this chart by nine numbers (one number for the height of each bar): 5-7-7-5-1-1-33-5. So by sampling (measuring) the sound wave once per second, we've successfully
turned our analog sound wave into digital information. We could send those numbers
through the air as radio waves to another phone, which would run the process in reverse and
turn the numbers back into sound we could hear.
But do you see the problem? Some information is going to get lost in the process of
converting the sound to digital and back again, because the measurement I've made doesn't
precisely capture the shape of the original wave: it's only a crude approximation. What can I
do about this? I could make more measurements, by measuring the sound wave twice as
often. That means doubling what's called the sampling rate. Now, as you can see in the
bottom chart, I get twice as many measurements and my sound wave is represented by
eighteen numbers: 6-7-7-8-8-7-7-5-2-1-1-2-3-3-4-4-4-4. The more I increase the sampling
rate, the more accurate my digital representation of the sound becomes—but the more
digital information I create and the more space I need to store it.
Artwork: Top: A crude analog sound wave. Middle: A low sampling rate produces a crude
digital approximation to the original wave. Bottom: Doubling the sampling rate produces a
6
more accurate digital version of the wave, but generates twice as much digital information
(data) that we need to store and transmit.
Sampling rate and bit rate
When you download digital music, you might be given the option of downloading the same
track at what are called different bit rates. Broadly speaking, the bit rate is the amount of
information captured each time the music is sampled. So a higher bit rate means more
information is captured and the analog information is turned into digital information more
accurately. Higher-quality music tracks may have a higher bit rate, but the tracks will take up
far more space on your computer and take longer to download.
Typically, music is digitally converted for CDs and MP3 tracks with a sampling rate of
44.1kHz (about 44,000 times per second). Why such a high rate? For technical reasons that
the sampling rate needs to be about twice the highest frequency of sound in your wave, and
since human hearing is limited to about 20kHz, that suggests we need a sampling rate of at
least 40kHz. The typical bit rate for MP3 tracks is around 128kbps (128,000 binary digits or
bits per second), though higher quality tracks have a bit rate between 128kbps and 256kbps
(up to 256,000 bits per second).
7
B.
DIGITAL STORAGE TECHNOLOGIES
 History of Storage from Cave Paintings to Electrons (Infographic)
by John Harris(April 12, 2016)
http://www.remosoftware.com/info/history-of-storage-from-cave-paintings-to-electrons
It started as paintings inside caves, then Papyrus for early documenting and today we are
looking for DNA as storage solutions. As our hunger for storage soars, so is technologies
have evolved from ages.
I`ve put together a brief timeline of how storage techniques have evolved. Think of it as a
highlight reel from the past.
40 Thousand Years Ago - Cave Paintings
Stone Age- Early Human Cave Paintings
Cave Paintings became a way of communicating with others. Early age cave paintings found
on cave walls and ceilings, were not merely decorations of living areas because they were
often located in areas that are not easily accessible.
8
Some theories also suggest that the paintings portrait the religious belief or ceremonies of
early human being.
Surprisingly these paintings are remarkably similar around the world, with animals being
most common subject. The earliest known paintings are at least 35,000 years old, at Maros
on the island Sulawesi in Indonesia. These paintings are only known resources of getting
insight of early life of human being. It stores the information that nowhere can be found.
20 Thousand Years Ago - Tally Stick
Medieval tally sticks
Earliest memory aid device. Tally were used to record and document numbers, quantities or
even messaging, especially for financial purposes. The only historical references about Tally
is made by Pliny the Elder (AD 23-79) and by Marco Polo (1254-1324).
A notable example of Tally Stick is Ishango bone: is a dark brown length of bone, the fibula
of a baboon, with a sharp piece of quartz affixed to one end, probably for engraving.
Some scientist believe that Tally was used to construct a numeral system. And it is one of
the earliest known form of computing.
2000 BC - Papyrus used for documenting around 2000 BC
Papyrus
Egyptian started manufacturing Papyrus as a writing material. Papyrus rolls were used to
describe the last years of building the Great Pyramid of Giza. Soon Christian writers adopted
the Papyrus as primary writing material.
1000 BC - Paper
Oldest paperbook
9
Paper took place of Papyrus for major uses of writing, printing, packaging etc. Initially
developed in China. The knowledge and uses spread through China to the Middle East to
medieval Europe.
1440 AD – Printing
Printing Machine Build by Johann Gutenberg
The earliest printing book “Diamond Sutra” came into existence in China. The printing
technology migrated to European countries through India. Johann Gutenberg from German
city Mainz developed first printing press with movable wooden or metal letters. This changed
the course of history, brought the revolution in the production of books. (Johann Gutenberg’s
Bible).
1750 AD - Punch Card
For the first time in the history punched card were used as a recording medium. In 1725
Basile Bouchon used perforated paper tapes to control looms. By 1801 machines were
developed to create paper tapes by tying punched cards in a sequence.
Semen Korsakov became the first man to use the punched card in informatics for
information store. Later Charles Babbage proposed the use of “Number Cards”.
Around 1890 Herman Hollerith invented recording of data using a medium that could be read
by a machine. Hollerith founded a company “The Tabulating Machine Company” (1890),
later that became International Business Machines corporation (IBM). Throughout 19th
century and till mid-20th century punched cards were used in data processing industry for
data input, processing, and storage. As of 2015, interestingly some of voting machine still
use punched cards.
1845 - Punched tape
Semen Korsakov’s punched card
Perforated Paper Tape (a.k.a Punched Tape) is a long strip of paper in which holes are
punched to store data. This was widely used during 20th century for telegrams, for input to
computers and later as storage medium for minicomputers and CNC. As of today, punched
tape use is rare, may be still used in older military systems and by some hobbyists.
10
1877
Phonograph
Edison with his Phonograph
11
The idea of Phonograph was born due to Thomas Edison`s work on two other inventions,
the telegraph and the telephone.
Phonograph was built inside a metal cylinder with tin foil wrapped around it. The machine
had two diaphragm and needle units, one for recording, and one for playback. When one
would speak into a mouthpiece, the sound vibrations would be indented onto the cylinder by
the recording needle in a vertical (or hill and dale) groove pattern.
Edison showcased the Phonograph in the offices of Scientific American, New York City. The
machine became instant hit, later Edison founded a company to sell the phonograph.
1898 - Telegraphone
The earliest telephone invented. Valdemar Poulsen, Danish telephone engineer and inventor,
patented the Telegraphone in 1898. First time ever magnetized wire was used for sound
recording and reproduction. The Telegraphone received considerable attention when it was
exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900. The few words that the Austrian
emperor Franz Joseph spoke into it at that exhibition are believed to be the earliest surviving
magnetic recording (sound excerpt).
1928 - Magnetic Tape
UNIVAC-I
By carrying further the work of Valdemar Poulsen on magnetic wire, the German engineer
Fritz Pfleumer invented the magnetic tape. AEG took up his idea and began producing a
machine called Magnetophon.
Later the technology was used to record data in 1951 on the Mauchly-Eckert UNIVAC I. IBM
computers from the 1950s used oxide- coated tape similar to that used in audio recording,
and soon became the de-facto industry standard.
1932 - Magnetic Drum
The early form of computer memory, Magnetic Drum was invented by G. Taushek of Austria
on the basis of a principle discovered by Pfleumer. The drum was widely used in the 1950s
and 1960s. It formed the main working memory of the machine, with data and programs
being loaded on to or off of the drum using media such as paper tape or punch cards.
Magnetic Drum was later replaced by core memory.
1946 - Tubes
Williams- Kilburn Tube
12
At Manchester University, UK professor Frederick C. Williams and Tom Kilburn developed
Williams- Kilburn Tube. Tested in 1947, the tube was first high speed, entirely electronic
memory. It comprises a cathode ray tube to store bits as dots on the screen. The dot lasted
only for a fraction of second before fading so the information was constantly refreshed. Data
was read by a metal pickup plate that would detect a change in electrical charge.
Selectron Tube
Selectron Tube was also one of the early forms of the computer memory. Developed by the
Jan. A Rajchman and his team at the Radio Corporation of America. Development of
Selectron started in 1946 as the compliment of high- speed memory for the design of IAS
machine. As they found the device to be much more complicated to build than they expected,
the idea was quitted and IAS machine was forced to switch to Williams-Kilburn tube.
Later RCA continued with the work with significantly smaller 256- bit capacity. But the project
ends up expensive, as a result, they were used only in one computer, the RAND
Corporation`s JOHNNIAC.
Both the Selectron and the Williams tube were superseded in the market by the more
compact and cost effective magnetic core memory, in the early 1950s.
1949 - Delay Line memory
Delay Line Memory was used on some of the earliest digital computers, now obsolete. It was
a refreshable memory, but unlike random access memory delay line memory was sequential
access.
Use of Delay Line memory for a computer came in vogue around the mid-1940s by J.
Presper Eckert. This Delay Line memory technology was used in computers like EDVAC and
the UNIVAC.
Magnetic Core
The earliest form of core memory was developed. The Magnetic Core comprises tiny
magnetic rings, the cores, through which wires are threaded to write and read information.
The earliest substantial work in the field was carried out by Shanghai- born American
Physicists An Wang and Way- Dong Woo by creating pulse transfer controlling device in
1949.
Several researchers in the late 1940s have conceived the idea of using the magnetic core
for computer memory. But Jay Forrester succeeded in getting patent for his invention
coincident core memory.
The Two key development by Wang and Forrester paved the way for the development of
Magnetic core memory in 1951.
13
Magnetic Core memory was widely used for 20 years, between 1955 and 1975, now largely
forgotten.
1956 - Hard Disk
RAMAC IBM introduced Hard disk drive in 1956 with the IBM 305 computer. This drive had fifty 24
inch platters, with a total capacity of five million characters.
In 1952, an IBM engineer named Reynold Johnson developed a massive hard disk
consisting of fifty platters, each two feet wide that rotated on a spindle at 1200 rpm with
read/write heads for the first database running RCAs Bismarck computer. The storage
capacity of the 305’s 50 two-foot diameter disks was 5 megabytes of data.
The IBM 305 was the first magnetic hard disk for data storage, and the RAMAC (Random
Access Method of Accounting and Control) technology soon becomes an industry standard.
1963 - Music Tape
In 1962, Philips a Dutch technology company introduced Music Tape (Compact Cassette) for
audio recording and playback. The Tape was originally intended to be used in dictation
machine, but soon after the release of Sony`s Walkman, it became a popular medium for
distributing pre-recorded music.
Music Tape was a step forward in terms of convenience from reel-to-reel audio tape
recording but lacked in capacity and speed.
In 1980s, the cassette became a cheap alternative of floppy disks as a storage medium for
programs and data.
1966 - DRAM
IBM researcher Robert H. Dennard Invents Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM)
cells, one transistor memory cells that store each single bit of information as an electrical
charge in an electronic circuit.
Since then capacity was increased thousands of times and access time was reduced
drastically.
1968 - Twistor memory
14
Twistor memory, developed by Bell Labs, is similar to core memory, formed by wrapping a
magnetic tape around a current carrying wire.
The first commercial use of Twistor memory was in their 1ESS switch which went into
operation in 1965. Twistor remains useful only for a short period during the late 1960s and
early 1970s. Later all earlier memory systems were replaced by semiconductor memory.
1970 - Bubble Memory
The Basic idea behind Twistor Memory led the way for the development of bubble
memory. The Bubble memory uses a magnetic material to hold small magnetized areas,
known as bubbles.
Bubble memory was invented by Andrew Bobeck in 1970. Due to slow access time, the
bubble memory remained useful only for a brief time.
1971 - 8’’ floppy
Qume Data Trak 8 inch floppy disk drive with diskette. Circa 1979, 1.2 MB.
Photo by Michael Holley, July 2007
Floppy disk is a data storage device, composed of a circular piece of thin, flexible magnetic
storage medium enclosed by a square or rectangular plastic wallet.
15
In 1971, IBM first introduced a read only 8 inch (20 cm) floppy with a capacity of 80 kilobytes.
The first disks were designed only for uploading into the controller of the Merlin (IBM 3330)
disk pack file. So the earliest floppy were used as alternatives of data storage device.
1976 - 5,25’’ floppy
IBM engineers led by Alan Shugart developed the smaller 5.25-inch floppy disk. The 5.25inch floppy disk was born because 8-inch floppy disk was too large to fit in desktop
computers. This new floppy disk holds 110 kilobytes and was cheaper than 8-inch floppy
disks.
Till this time, only one side of floppy disk was used. In 1978, a double sided 5.25-inch floppy
disk was developed. It increases the capacity to 360 kilobytes.
1980 - CD
A compact disc is an optical disc to store digital data, originally for storing digital studio. The
idea of CD was is older than the 1980s. In the 1960s, James T. Russel had the idea to use
light for recording and replaying music. The idea led to invention of optical digital television
recording and playback machine in 1970, but the idea didn`t really blow the world. In 1975
representative of Philips visited Russel at his Lab. They downgraded his invention but they
put millions of dollars in development of the CD. Later altogether Sony and Philips launched
the Compact disc in 1980 named as Red Book. Soon Red Book became industry standard
for audio CD.
In 1982 Sony launched the first CD player called Sony CDP-101. It was able to play audio
CDs and priced 625 US dollar.
1981 - 3, 5” floppy
Unlike previous square outlined floppy, the new 3.5-inch floppy disk was rectangular and had
their rigid case`s slide in place metal cover. This design had significant advantage against
unintended physical contact with the disk surface. When the disk was inserted, a part of the
drive moved the metal cover aside, giving the drive’s read/write heads the necessary access
to the magnetic recording surfaces.
Like 5.25 inch floppy disks 3.5 inches also went through several improvements. Earliest
designed offered in a 360 KB single sided and 720 KB double sided double- density
format. A newer improved 1440 KB floppy was introduced in the mid-80s. IBM used it on
their PS/2 series in 1987.
1984 - CD-ROM
16
The CD-ROM, an optical data storage medium developed by using same physical format as
the audio compact discs. The capacity was enlarged as CD-ROM is encoded at near
microscopic size.
The standard CD-ROM holds approximately 650-700 megabytes of data, although data
compression technology allows larger capacities. In 1985, the yellow book standard for CDROM was established by Sony and Philips.
1987 - DAT
Sony introduced Digital Audio Tape (DAT or R-DAT) a signal recording and playback
medium. In appearance DAT was similar to compact disc, but technology of DAT is closely
based on that of video recorders, using a rotating head and helical scan to record data.
1989 - DDS
Digital Data Storage (DDS) was evolved from DAT technology. It was a format for storing
and backing up computer data on magnetic tape. In 1989, Sony and Hewlett Packard
defined the DDS format for data storage using DAT tape cartridges.
1990 - MOD
Magneto-Optical is an optical disc format that uses a combination of optical and magnetic
technologies. A special Magneto-optical drive is required to read these discs. It consists of a
substrate medium upon which a ferromagnetic material is applied, originally crystalline in
nature however metal alloys are used today.
1992 - MiniDisc
17
The Sony MZ1 was the first MiniDisc player, released in 1992.
MiniDisc (MD) technology was announced by Sony in 1991 and introduced January 12,
1992. It is a disc- based data storage device for storing any kind of data, usually audio.
MiniDisc was targeted as a replacement for analogue cassette tapes as the recording
system for Hi-Fi equipment. That became a brief format war ended when DCC was phased
out in 1996.
MD Data, a version for storing computer data was announced by Sony in 1993, but it never
gained significant ground, so today MDs are used primarily for audio storage.
1993 - DLT
Digital Linear Tape (DLT) is a de facto standard for magnetic tape technology used for
computer data storage. It was invented by Digital Equipment Corporation, and was
purchased by Quantum Corporation in 1994, who currently manufacture drives and license
the technology.
1994 - Compact Flash and Zip
CompactFlash (CF) uses the flash memory in a standardized enclosure to store data. CF
comprises both memory and controller, thus can be read by older devices as well.
Flash memory are more robust than disk drives and consume 5% of the power required by
small disk drives. They can be used in laptop, desktops, digital cameras, and a wide variety
of other devices.
In late 1994 Iomega introduced a medium-capacity removable disk storage system named
as the Zip drive. The Zip holds all the convenience of 3.5” floppy, but stores much more
data. Zip is quicker than a standard floppy drive, the earliest Zip had a data transfer rate of
1mb/sec.
Zip also introduced media access protection via a password. Like write protection, this is
also implemented on the software level.
1995 - DVD
Backside of a Sony DADC-manufactured DVD
18
DVD is a bigger, faster CD that can store large video films, than CD audio, still photos, and
computer data. DVD is the new generation of optical disc storage technology.
DVD replaced all laserdisc, videotape and video game cartridges, and could eventually
replace CD and CD-ROM. DVD is widely adopted by all major computer hardware
companies, and all major movie and music studio.
In 2003, six years after introduction, there were over 250 million DVD playback devices
worldwide.
SmartMedia: Toshiba launched SmartMedia to compete with intel`s obsolete MiniCard and
SanDisk`s wildly praised Compact Flash in the summer of 1995. Originally the SmartMedia
was named Solid State Floppy Disk Card (SSFDC).
SmartMedia consists of a single NAND flash EEPROM chip embedded in a thin plastic card.
The primary difference was the lack of a built-in controller in the card, which kept the cost
down. Modern computers, both laptop and desktops have SmartMedia slots built in, but this
is becoming less common as SmartMedia becomes less common.
Phasewriter Dual: The Phasewriter Dual (PD) was introduced 1995 by Panasonic but soon it
replaced by CD-ROM and later by DVD. A PD was the first generation of optical storage
devices. Some of the first generation CD-ROM drives were compatible with PD.
But since 2001 the PD discs and PD-drives became obsolete.
1996 – AIT and CD-RW
Sony developed the Advanced Intelligent Tape (AIT) based on the earlier Digital Audio Tape
format. It is a computer storage magnetic tape format that has fourth times larger storage
capacity than DAT. The AIT was used as a backup system only.
A compact Disc Rewritable, or CD-RW, is a rewritable version of CD-ROM. A CD-RW drive
can write about 700MiB of data to media around 1000 times. The number of times CD-RW
can be rewrite varies with the quality and manufacturing technique employed. A variation of
UDF formatting allows CD-RWs to be randomly read and written, but limits the capacity to
about 500MB.
1997 - Multimedia card
Unveiled in 1997 by Siemens and SanDisk, the Multimedia Card (MMC) is a flash memory
card standard. It is based on Toshiba`s NAND- based flash memory, and is therefore much
smaller than earlier NOR- based memory.
MMC were more or less downgraded due to SD cards, but still significantly useful because
MMC can be used in any device which supports SD cards. A handful of companies, most
notably Nokia, still support MMC exclusively.
19
1998 - Memory Stick
In October 1998, Sony launched the Memory Stick a removable memory card format.
Typically, used as storage media for a portable device, that can easily be removed for
access by PC. For example, Sony digital cameras use Memory Sticks for storing image files.
With a Memory Stick reader a user could copy the information form the stick to the PC.
The MMC came in size from 4MB up to and including 128 MB. Later Sony introduced a
double sided memory stick (similar to floppy disk) to increase the size of the stick. But the
format was fairly unpopular. However, Lexar still manufacture the 256 MB Memory Stick
select.
1999 - Microdrive
A Microdrive, developed by IBM, is actually a mini version of hard disk in the format of a
CompactFlash- Card. The first generation of Microdrives had a capacity of 340 MB, which
was used by NASA. The next generation were with a capacity of 512 MB and 1 GB.
Microdrives are usually used in PDAs and digital cameras
2001 - USB key
USB flash drive, essentially NAND-type flash memory integrated with a USB interface, used
as portable data storage medium. USB Flash Drive are also known as “pen drives”, “thumb
drives”, “flash drives”, “USB keys”, “USB memory keys”, “USB sticks”, “jump drives”,
“keydrives”,”vault drives” and many more names. They are also sometimes
miscalled memory sticks (a Sony trademark describing a different type of portable memory).
20
SD card
First SD card
Secure Digital ( also known as SD) was developed based on Toshiba`s MMC format with
added DRM encryption features and allows faster file transfers. Typically, an SD card is
used as storage media for a portable device, in a form that can easily be removed for access
by a PC.
SD card is the currently most popular format, supports PDAs, with Dell, palmOne, HP,
Toshiba, Sharp, and others. Digital cameras tend to support SD cards, as well.
2003 - Blue- Ray
Blu-Ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is next generation optical disc format meant for high definition video (HD) and
high data storage, and is one of two competing standards for HD optical media.
Blu-ray is named after the shorter wavelength blue laser, additionally it allows it to store
substantially more data than on the same sized disc than DVD which uses a longer
wavelength red laser.
One single-layer Blu-ray Disc (BD) can hold about 25 GB or over two hours of HD video plus
audio, and the dual-layer disc can hold approximately 50 GB. Blu-ray was jointly developed
by a group of leading consumer electronics and PC companies called the Blu-ray Disc
Association (BDA), which succeeded the Blu-ray Disc Founders (BDF).
xD- Picture card
xD-Picture (extreme digital) Card, developed and introduced by Olympus and Fujifilm in
July 2002. . xD cards are used exclusively in Olympus and Fujifilm digital cameras, and are
available in a range of sizes, from 16 MB to 1 GB. They primarily compete with formats such
as SD, CF, and Sony memory sticks.
Modern computers, both laptops and desktops, rarely have built-in xD slots even when other
formats are supported, due to the general lack of popularity xD suffers from. However,
PCMCIA and CF adapters are available for xD-Picture cards, enabling them to be used in
readers and cameras which do not have native support for the xD format.
2004 - HD DVD
HD-DVD (High-Density Digital Versatile Disc) is similar to Blu-ray disc, developed as one of
the standards for high-definition DVD. HD-DVD has a single layer capacity of 15 GB and a
dual-layer capacity of 30 GB. Toshiba has announced a triple-layer disc is in development,
which would offer 45GB of storage.
21
2006-2007 - Cloud Based Services
amazon web services 2006
Amazon web Services is launched in 2006. It introduced a number of web services, including
Amazon Elastic Cloud 2 (EC2) and Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). EC2 allowed
users to rent virtual time on the cloud to scale server capacity quickly and efficiently while
only paying for what was used. Use of the cloud eliminates the need for a company to
maintain a complex computing infrastructure on their own. Additionally, it saved space and
hassle in the form of less onsite server room square footage.
Dropbox is founded in 2007 Ferdowsi and Drew Houston. Dropbox was designed as a cloudbased service used for convenient storage and access to files. Users could upload files via
the web to Dropbox’s vast server farms, and could instantly access them on any of their
devices or computers that had the Dropbox client installed.
Today – Holographic and DNA
HOLOGRAM
The Holographic storage, much like what GE is working on would allow data to be encoded
on many layers of tiny holograms. It is said that disk derived from this technology will last for
30+ years.
DNA
Researchers are working on DNA technology that will allow to store data in strands of
synthetic DNA or Plant DNA. They have found that DNA has the huge potential of storing
massive data. They could replace mammoth sized data centres.
22
The Future - Quantum Storage
Quantum storage solution for computer storage
Data storage could one day be so tiny that, not even a super microscope can sniff it out. A
single bit of information could be encoded on a quantum mechanical system, such as an
electron decipherable by a quantum computer.
History of Storage from Cave Paintings to Electrons (Infographic) was last modified: April
19th, 2016 by John Harris 23
 Internal storage vs. memory
CNET editor Dong Ngo goes over the basics of digital storage devices for home users.
by Dong Ngo(April 24, 2014)
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/digital-storage-basics-part-1-internal-storage-vs-memory/
Editors' note: This post is part of an ongoing series and was updated on April 24, 2014,
with current information. For the other parts in the series, check out the related stories.
It's not the locker room type of storage we're talking about here. Instead it's something much
more important and often underrated: the place where information is stored.
When it comes to computer storage, judging from many questions friends and readers send
me, there's quite a bit of confusion among general users as to what it actually is. And it's not
your fault; digital storage can be as messy as my desk. This is the reason for this series,
where I sort out the basics and more, in layman's terms.
That said, some information in this might be too basic for advanced users. Home and novice
users, however, give yourself some uninterrupted time and dive in. You'll survive.
1. Understanding the units
No matter how boring this is, you can't grasp digital storage without know its measurement
unit, which is byte.
Byte (symbol: B): Byte is generally the smallest unit in digital storage. You can think of 1
byte as one character in a document. For example, we actually need to use 4 bytes to store
just the word "byte." In real life, we use larger units, including kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte,
and terabyte.
Note:Technically, there's another smaller unit called bit (symbol: b), which is a single binary
unit that represents the state 0 or 1, which encodes digital information. A byte is a sequence
of bits, and generally 1 byte equals 8 bits. Bit is more commonly used to show the data
being transferred, especially over a long distance, such as the speed of the Internet, which is
measured in bits per second. Byte is more commonly used to show the amount of storage or
in situations you can move a large amount of data. When it comes to storage space, it's
better to use byte; much like it's more practical to count the number of cows than counting
the number of feet and then divide by four.
Kilobyte (KB or kB): By general definition, one kilobyte is 1,024 bytes. In many cases, for
the sake of simplicity, 1 kilobyte is understood as 1,000 bytes.
Megabyte (MB): By general definition, 1 megabyte is 1,024,000 bytes. Similarly, it can also
be understood as 1,000,000 bytes.
Gigabyte (GB): By general definition, 1 gigabyte is 1,000,000,000 bytes.
24
Note:There's another unit called a gibibyte (GiB), with 1 GiB equaling 1,073,741,824 bytes.
The JEDEC memory standard also defines 1 gigabyte as 1,073,741,824 bytes, which
happens to be the definition that Microsoft uses and hence is used by the Windows
operating system to report storage device capacity. This causes confusion since all storage
devices now appear to offer less storage space than their advertized capacity. For example,
a 500GB drive, once formatted by Windows, will report a capacity of only around 465GB.
This is just a matter of interpretation.
Terabyte (TB): By general definition, 1 terabyte is 1,000,000,000,000 bytes, or 1,000GB.
Currently, the largest 3.5-inch hard drive (commonly found inside a desktop computer) offers
4TB of storage space. Most computers come with drives with capacities of somewhere
between 120GB and 2TB. Most mobile devices, such as tablets or smartphones, offer
between 8GB and 120GB of storage space.
Note:Generally, a typical photo taken by the iPhone 4 takes up about 2MB of storage space.
A digital song uses about 5MB. A compact disc (CD), which has the capacity of 700MB, can
hold about 350 iPhone photos or some 140 songs. The actual size of digital content varies a
great deal, however, depending on the format and the compression level. The common rule
is the richer (and/or higher quality) the content, the larger storage space it requires. A 10minute audio podcast needs anywhere between 4MB and 10MB, but a 10-minute high-def
movie requires a few hundred megabytes or even a gigabyte of storage space.
A 2.5-inch hard drive next to a 3.5-inch hard drive. Dong Ngo/CNET
2. Storage vs. memory
These are two terms that are often mistakenly used for each another, though they are two
very different things.
Storage, in a nutshell, is where the information (such as Word documents, photos, movie
clips, programs, and so on) is stored. In a computer, the whole operating system itself, such
as Windows 7 or Mac OS, is also stored on the internal storage device. Storage is
nonvolatile, meaning that the information is still there when the host device (a computer, for
example) is turned off and is readily accessible when the device is turned back on. It's like a
book or a paper notebook that's always there, ready for you to read or write on.
Memory (aka system memory, random access memory, or RAM), on the other hand, is
where information is being processed and manipulated. Data in the system memory is
volatile, meaning that when the computer is turned off, it's gone; the memory becomes blank,
as if nothing has been there before. It's somewhat like the short-term memory part of your
brain, where images or ideas are being formed and processed when you read a book -those that disappear the moment you stop reading.
When you turn on the computer, most of the boot time is as the operating system is being
25
loaded from the computer's main storage unit -- likely a hard drive -- to the system memory.
The computer is fully loaded and ready to do other tasks when this process is done.
Despite their differences, there's a strong relationship between system memory and storage.
The Word document that you're working on, for example, is in the computer's memory.
When you save it, a copy of it now resides on the computer's storage. When you close
Microsoft Word completely, the document now only resides on the hard drive (storage) and
is no longer in the memory, until you open it again.
System memory is a lot more expensive than hard drive storage,
gigabyte to gigabyte. Dong Ngo/CNET
All this means is that you generally don't actually experience storage. Everything that's
presented to you on a computer's screen or via the speakers actually takes place in the
system memory. Before it gets there, however, it needs to be loaded from the computer's
storage device into the system memory. So the larger and faster system memory the
computer is equipped with, the more quickly the information becomes ready and the more
you can do with a computer at one time (multitasking). You generally need far less memory
than storage. Most new computers come with somewhere between 2GB to 8GB of memory,
and you don't need more than that. This is a good thing, too; gigabyte to gigabyte, memory
is much more expensive than storage.
Of course, memory is just one of many factors in a computer's performance. Another factor
is the storage itself, which is either a hard drive (aka hard disk) or a solid-state drive (SSD).
\ A standard laptop hard drive (left) and a standard SSD. They look very
similar on the outside. Dong Ngo/CNET
3. Hard drive vs. solid-state drive
The hard drive has been the most common storage device for decades, dominating since
the early 1960s. Solid-state drives, however, are relatively new and have been getting more
and more popular in the last three years. In most case, they can be used interchangeably,
and both have pros and cons.
Hard drive (or HDD)
While the hard drive has evolved a lot since its inception, the basics remain the same: it's a
box that contains a few magnetic disks (known as platters) attached to a spindle, very similar
to a spindle of blank CDs or DVDs. Each of the platters has a reading/writing head hovering
on top. As the spindle spins, the head moves in and out to write or read data to and from any
part of the platter, on a tiny information-recording unit called the "data track." This type of
access to information is called "random access," as opposed to the inefficient "sequential
access" found in the old and obsolete types of storage, such as tape.
26
The SSD (left) has no moving parts. Dong Ngo/CNET
While the concept is rather simple, the inside of a modern hard drive is a world of advanced
nanotechnology. This is because as hard drives' storage capacities increase while their
physical sizes remain the same, the density of information written on the platters becomes
so great that we need to use nanometers to measure it. One nanometer is 1 billionth of a
meter (a meter is about 3.3 feet).
Perspective: Inside a regular 2.5-inch laptop hard drive, the WD Scorpio Blue, for example,
the gap between the recording head and the platter is just a few nanometers. The two can
never touch each other -- or else the drive will be "bricked" -- and when the hard drive is at
work, its platters spin at 5,400rpm. (Desktop and high-end laptop hard drives spin even
faster at 7,200rpm or 10,000rpm.) To put this in context, if we enlarged the Scorpio Blue by
13,000 times, the platter would look like a circular race track about 3.3 miles in diameter; a
data track would be about 0.4 inch in length, and the recording head would be about the size
of a go-kart. When the hard drive is in operation, this go-kart would be flying on the track
less than the thickness of a human hair above it, at a speed of about 3.4 million miles per
hour.
Hard drives generally come in two physical designs: 3.5-inch (for desktops) and 2.5-inch (for
laptops). The laptop hard drives can also come in different thicknesses, such as 9.5mm
(standard), or 7mm (ultrathin). A hard drive is connected to a host using a connecting
interface standard.
Connection interface: This is the standard that determines how a hard drive (or a standard
SSD) is connected to a host (such as a computer) and how fast the data rate is between the
storage device and the host. There have been a handful of interface standards for storage.
Currently, most if not all consumer-grade drives use the serial ATA (or SATA) standard. This
standard is available in three generations: SATA I, SATA II, and SATA III, which offer a
speed cap of 1.5Gbps, 3Gbps, and 6Gbps, respectively. The latest generation of the SATA
standard is backward compatible with the previous generations, in terms of usability. In
terms of performance, you'll need use those of the same SATA generation for optimal speed.
Pros of hard drives: Generally, hard drives offer the largest amount of storage per unit
(currently up to 4TB for the 3.5-inch design, or 2TB for the 2.5-inch design). They are also
very affordable, costing just a few cents per gigabyte. For this reason, hard drives are still
the most popular form of computer storage and are used in most storage applications.
Cons of hard drives: Since these are mechanical devices, hard drives suffer from wear and
tear, just like any other machine with moving parts. They also use significantly more energy
(compared with SSDs), generate heat, and are much slower. Hard drives also require some
time to spin from being idle or turned off, which makes the host computer take longer to boot.
Generally, a typical hard drive, in common use, lasts about five years.
27
Solid-state drive (SSD)
Unlike a hard drive, an SSD has no moving parts. Similar to system memory, SSDs are
microchips designed to store information. However, these are nonvolatile memory chips that
can retain information the way hard drives do. Most standard SSDs come in the 2.5-inch
design, and on the outside, they look just like a regular 2.5-inch hard drive. Standard SSDs
work in any cases in which hard drives of the same connection interface are used. Since
there are no moving parts, SSDs can be made in many different (and sometimes proprietary)
physical shapes and sizes, making them the best choice for mobile devices, such as
smartphones or tablets. Generally the lifespan of an SSD depends on how much information
is being written on it (the less, the better) and how large its capacity is (the larger, the better).
Pros of SSDs: Much faster than regular hard drives, much more energy-efficient, more
durable, much cooler, and quieter. Upgrading a computer from using a hard drive to an SSD
as its main storage offers the single biggest incentive in terms of performance. Most SSDs
last much longer than five years; some could even last hundreds of years.
Three main types of SSDs: PCIe, mSATA and 2.5-inch standard. Dong
Ngo/CNET
Cons of SSDs: The biggest catch with SSDs is the price. Currently SSDs are between 7
and 50 times more expensive than hard drives in terms of cost per gigabyte, depending on
the capacity. SSDs also have limited capacities, offering just about 512GB or less before
getting too expensive to be practical. SSDs also suffer from a finite time of writing, called
"write endurance." In other words, an SSD can be written on a limited number of times
before it becomes unreliable. Before you can rewrite on a part of the drive, you'll need to first
erase the information already stored on that part. This is why the write endurance rating is
also known as the program/erase (PE) cycles. In reality, this is not a big deal because for
most situations, an SSD would likely be replaced for other reasons way before its PE cycles
end.
Type of SSDs: There are three mains type of consumer-grade SSDs, differentiating by their
design and connection type.
The standard SSD, the most popular type of SSDs on the market, shares the same design
and connection type as a standard laptop 2.5-inch hard drive. It uses the SATA connection
type and has the speed cap of that of the SATA standard which is now at 6Gbps.
The second type is mSATA SSD which is much smaller and use the mSATA connection
type. mSATA is used only in ultra mobile devices and certain laptop. It also has the speed
cap of the SATA standard.
And finally, there's the PCI Express SSD, or PCIe SSD, which share the same design as an
PCIe add on card, such as a video card. For this reason, PCIe SSDs that you can purchase
will only work in certain desktop computers that have an available PCIe slot that can support
this type of SSDs. Specially design PCIe SSDs can also be found in high-end laptops, such
as the new Macbook Pro, and desktops, such as the latest Apple Mac Pro.
Generally, the best use for SSDs is as the main storage unit of a computer that hosts the
28
operating system; it will improve the computer's overall performance a great deal, compared
with a hard drive. In desktops, you can also use an SSD as the main drive and another
regular hard drive as a secondary drive to house data. ON a laptop, you can also achieve
this setup by using the Black 2 Dual Drive from WD.
This hybrid solution is actually the best practice that balances performance, cost, and
storage space. Or you can also opt for a hybrid drive.
The WD Black 2 Dual drives offers the best of both SSD and HDD inside
one 2.5-inch standard package. Dong Ngo/CNET
Hybrid drive
Also known as solid-state hard drive or SSHD. As the name suggests, a hybrid drive is one
that uses both regular platter-based storage and solid-state-based storage in one box.
Hybrid drives come with a built-in algorithm that automatically moves the frequently
accessed files, such as the those of the operating system, to the solid-state part, and leaves
the more static data, such as photos or movies, on the hard-drive part. This offers SSD-like
performance without the high price tag and the limited storage space. The trend of SSHD
started with the Seagate Momentus XT. But now there are also SSHDs from other storage
vendors.
In real-life testing, hybrid drives indeed help boost a computer's performance, compared with
hard drives, but they are in no way as fast as SSDs.
That's it for now. If you still have questions, put them in the comments section or send it to
me via Twitter or my Facebook page. Check back again for Part 2, where I'll talk about
external storage devices.
 History of Data Storage Technology
by Zetta Staff(May 5, 2016) http://www.zetta.net/about/blog/history-data-storage-technology
Whether it’s for a family photo album, a computer program, or a Fortune 500 company’s
business-critical systems, data storage is a must-have for nearly everyone. As technology
has evolved, computers have allowed for increasingly capacious and efficient data storage,
which in turn has allowed increasingly sophisticated ways to use it.
These include a variety of business applications, each with unique storage demands. The
storage used for long-term data archiving, in which the data will be very infrequently
accessed, might be different from the storage used for backup and restore or disaster
recovery, in which data needs to be frequently accessed or change.
1920s - Fritz Pfleumer, a German engineer, patented magnetic tape in 1928. He based his
invention off Vlademar Poulsen's magnetic wire.
29
1930s - G. Taushek, an Austrian innovator, invented the magnetic drum in 1932. He based
his invention off a discovery credited to Fritz Pfleumer.
1928 Magnetic Tape
1932 Magnetic Drum
1940s - Professor Fredrick C. Williams and his colleagues developed the first random
access computer memory at the University of Manchester located in the United Kingdom. He
used a series of electrostatic cathode-ray tubes for digital storage. A storage of 1024 bits of
information was successfully implemented in 1948.
In 1948, The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) developed the Selectron tube, an early
form of computer memory, which resembled the Williams-Kilburn design.
The delay line memory consists of imparting an information pattern into a delay path. A
closed loop forms to allow for the recirculation of information if the end of the delay path
connects to the beginning through amplifying and time circuits. A delay line memory
functions similar to inputting a repeating telephone number from the directory until an
individual dials the number.
1946 Williams Tube
Selectron Tube
1949 Delay Line Memory
1950s - A magnetic core memory, also known as a ferrite-core memory, uses small
magnetic rings made of ceramic to store information from the polarity to the magnetic field it
contains.
A hard disk implements rotating platters, which stores and retrieves bits of digital information
from a flat magnetic surface.
Magnetic Core
1956 Hard Disk
30
1960s – Philips introduced the compact audio cassette in 1963. Philips originally intended to
use the audio cassette for dictation machines; however, it became a popular method for
distributing prerecorded music. In 1979, Sony's Walkman helped transformed the use of the
audio cassette tape, which became widely used and popular.
In 1966, Robert H. Dennard invented DRAM cells. Dynamic Random Access Memory
technology (DRAM), or memory cells that contained one transistor. DRAM cells store bits of
information as an electrical charge in a circuit. DRAM cells increased overall memory density.
Bell Labs developed Twistor memory by wrapping magnetic tape around a wire that
conducts electrical current. Bell Labs used Twistor tape between 1968 to the mid-1970s
before it was totally replaced by RAM chips.
1963 Music Tape
1966 DRAM (PDF) 1968 Twistor Memory
1970s - In 1970, Andrew Bobeck invented the Bubble Memory, a thin magnetic film used to
store one bit of data in small magnetized areas that look like bubbles. The development of
the Twistor memory enabled him to create Bubble Memory
IBM started its development of an inexpensive system geared towards loading microcode
into the System/370 mainframes. As a result, the 8-inch floppy emerged. A floppy disk, a
portable storage device made of magnetic film encased in plastic, made it easier and faster
to store data.
Allan Shugart developed a the 5.25-inch floppy disk in 1976. Shugart developed a smaller
floppy disk, because the 8-inch floppy was too large for standard desktop computers. The
5.25-inch floppy disk had a storage capacity of 110 kilobytes. The 5.25-inch floppy disks
were a cheaper and faster alternative to its predecessor.
1970 Bubble Memory 1971 8" Floppy
1975 5.25" Floppy
1980s - During the 1960s, James T. Russel thought of using light to record and replay music.
As a result, he invented the optical digital television recording and playback television in
1970; however, nobody took to his invention. In 1975, Philips representatives visited Russel
at his lab. They paid Russel millions for him to develop the compact disc (CD). In 1980,
Russel completed the project and presented it to Sony.
31
The 3.5-inch floppy disk had significant advantages over its predecessors. It had a rigid
metal cover that made it harder to damage the magnetic film inside.
The CD-ROM, also known as the Compact Disk Read-Only Memory, used the same
physical format as the audio compact disks to store digital data. The CD-ROM encodes tiny
pits of digital data into the lower surface of the plastic disc, which allowed for larger amounts
of data to be stored.
In 1987, Sony introduced the Digital Audio Tape (DAT), a signal recording and playback
machine. It resembled the audio cassette tape on the surface with a 4 millimeter magnetic
tape enclosed into a protective shell.
In 1989, Sony and Hewlett Packard introduced the Digital Data Storage (DDS) format to
store and back up computer data on magnetic tape. The Digital Data Storage (DDS) format
evolved from Digital Audio Tape (DAT) technology.
1980 CD
1981 3.5" Floppy
1984 CD Rom
1987 DAT
1989 DDS
1990s - The Magneto-Optical disc emerged onto the information technology field in 1990.
This optical disc format used a combination of optical and magnetic technologies to store
and retrieve digital data. A special magneto-optical drive is necessary to retrieve the data
stored on these 3.5 to 5.25-inch discs.
The MiniDisc stored any kind of digital data; however, it was predominately used for audio.
Sony introduced MiniDisc technology in 1991. In 1992, Philip's introduced the Digital
Compact Cassette System (DCC). MiniDisc was intended to replace the audio cassette tape
before it eventually phased out in 1996.
The Digital Equipment Corporation invented the Digital Linear Tape (DLT), an alternative to
the magnetic tape technology used for computer storage.
CompactFlash (CF), also known as “flash drives,” used flash memory in an enclosed disc to
save digital data. CF devices are used in digital cameras and computers to store digital
information.
The Zip drive became commonly used in 1994 to store digital files. It was a removable disk
storage system introduced by Iomega.
1990 MOD
1992 MiniDisc
1993 DLT
1994 Compact Flash
Zip
32
DVD became the next generation of digital disc storage. DVD, a bigger and faster alternative
to the compact disc, serves to store multimedia data.
Toshiba launched the SmartMedia, a flash memory card, in the summer of 1995 to compete
with MiniCard and SanDisk.
The Phasewriter Dual (PD) was the first device that used phase-change technology to store
digital data. Panasonic introduced the Phasewriter Dual device in 1995. It was replaced by
the CD-ROM and DVD.
The Compact Disc Rewritable disc, a rewritable version of the CD-ROM, allows users to
record digital data over previous data.
The Multimedia Card (MMC) uses a flash memory card standard to house digital data. It was
introduced by Siemen's and SanDisk in 1997.
A USB Flash Drive uses a NAND-type flash memory to store digital data. A USB Flash Drive
plugs into the USP interface on standard computers.
1995 DVD
SmartMedia
PhasewriterDual CD-RW
MultimediaCard
Microdrive
2000s - The Secure Digital (SD) flash memory format incorporates DRM encryption features
that allow for faster file transfers. Standard SD cards measure 32 millimeters by 32
millimeters by 2.1 millimeters. A typical SD card stores digital media for a portable device.
Blu-Ray is the next generation of optical disc format used to store high definition video (HD)
and high density storage. Blu-Ray received its name for the blue laser that allows it to store
more data than a standard DVD. Its competitor is HD-DVD.
Olympus and Fujifilm introduced the xD-Picture Card in 2002, which are exclusively used for
Olympus and Fujifilm digital cameras.
The Windows Media High Definition Video (WMV-HD) references high definition videos
encoded with Microsoft Media Video nine codecs. WMV-D is compatible for computer
systems running Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows XP. In addition, WMV-D is compatible
with Xbox-360 and Sony's PlayStation 3.
High-Density Digital Versatile Disc (HD-DVD), a digital optical media format, uses the same
disc size as Blu-Ray. It is promoted by Toshiba, NEC, and Sanyo.
The future of computer memory resides in holographic technology. Holographic memory can
store digital data at high density inside crystals and photo-polymers. The advantage of
33
holographic memory lies in its ability to store a volume of recording media, instead of just on
the surface of discs. In addition, it enables a 3D aspect that allows a phenomenon known as
Bragg volume to occur.
SD Card
Blu Ray
xD-PictureCard WMV-HD
HD-DVD
Holographic
TODAY - mprovements in internet bandwidth and the falling cost of storage capacity means
it’s frequently more economical for business and individuals to outsource their data storage
to the cloud, rather than buying, maintaining and replacing their own hardware. Cloud offers
near-infinite scalability, and the anywhere/everywhere data access that users increasingly
expect.
Cloud Data Storage
None of these new data storage technologies would be possible, however, without a century
of steady scientific and engineering progress. From the invention of the magnetic tape in
1928 all the way to the use of cloud today, advanced data storage has come a long way.
Data storage technology has transformed completely since the initial models from the 1920s.
Today, the cloud is not just making data storage easier and more convenient – it’s providing
a platform for the businesses and services building the next era of computing. Here at Zetta,
that means keeping business-critical data backed up and available for recovery anytime,
anywhere.
Learn more about how Zetta uses the cloud to help companies keep their data protected
from disaster.
34