| Today it is hard to imagine our lives without computers. We use them at work and for amusement. Communication with people, watching films, listening to music, playing games and different other activities are represented by personal computers. Computers are strongly linked to computer data. Info is generally saved to the HD of the personal computer, but it is strongly recommended to have a copy of all the significant info on other data storage media. This will guarantee the safe keeping of this info in case of trouble with the HD.
There are several types of data storage media. The most popular amid them are magnetic tapes, hard disc, compact and digital versatile discs and flash memory disks. All these information storage media have their own pluses and minuses. It's up to you to decide what recording medium to choose so as to store your back up data.
Magnetic tape used to be the most widespread medium for data storage. It constitutes an access medium, so the access time is slower than if you use HD. But at the same time continuous reading and writing are considerably faster. With the development of new recording mediums floppy disks are becoming obsolete, but they are still in use in emergency situations, because they are amid the most reliable information media.
Another type of information storage media is optical disc backup system, usually referred to as compact discs and digital versatile discs. This system is efficient and easy in use. A significant advantage of these discs is that the data can be stored to and read from these discs practically on any personal computer with a standard CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive.
Flash memory disc backup system, including USB drives, SmartMedia, Memory Stick and others, represents the next step of data storage development. These devices are portable, easy to apply and able to save a great amount of info. All the modern personal computers have an opportunity to read data from these discs. Their only disadvantage is high price comparing to floppy or optical disks. But at the same time flash memory disk system is the most reliable and convenient information storage medium. |
