 |  | |
How to Choose a Storage Device?By Dr. Michael
You are encouraged to make links to this article from your website and tell your friends
The following advice is based on many years of experience. It is provided as a free service to our customers and visitors. However, Directron.com is not responsible for any damage as a result of following any of this advice. You are welcome to distribute these tips free to your friends and associates as long as it's not for commercial purposes.
The primary storage device of a computer is its hard drive, where the operating system is stored. For tips on how to choose hard drives, please click here. There are mainly two types of secondary storage devices. One is for transfer of data between computers. The other is for data backup.
A 1.44MB floppy drive is still the most inexpensive and convenient way to transfer of data and files between computers. Thus, it is still a "must" component for any PC. However, floppy drives are not being used as often as before, thanks to Internet, e-mail, and local area network (LAN) and because of the capacity limitation. As a result, the reliability difference between different brands of floppy drives is becoming less important. We suggest choosing a floppy drive by its price.
Currently, there are two alternatives to floppy drives for data transfer. One is Zip drive with a 100MB capacity. The second one is LS120 super drive with a 120MB capacity. Both drives and their blank media are much more expensive than a floppy drive. However, their capacity makes them almost a necessity in today's world of large image, web, and program files. Most internal Zip drives are based on IDE interface, making it much faster than the floppy drive and LS120. The advantage of the LS120 is its back compatibility with floppy drive. However, we think the speed is more important and valuable. Several manufacturers make Zip drives including Iomega, Panasonic, and NEC. We do not think the brand makes any difference.
Almost all new software these days comes in a CD medium. Therefore, a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive is still a must for any stand-alone PC. The speed of a CD or DVD drive is important only during loading software and playing games. You don't have to have CD and DVD-ROM drives on the same machine. A DVD drive will function as a CD-ROM drive, but has much higher capacity. You may share the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive through a local area network (LAN).
Today, most DVD drives on a PC are used for watching movies. However, most people found watching movies on a PC monitor in their study not so convenient. (It's too far away from the refrigerator and the chair is not as comfortable as the couch). DVD may become the popular medium of the future because of its much larger capacity, especially when DVD-Rewritables become mass produced.
As a backup device, the capacities of Zip and LS120 drives are often not adequate to backup an entire hard drive. Zip 250MB drives are now readily available. The mobility of an external Zip drive allows sharing the drive among several computer users.
There are three major choices for data backup. One is a secondary hard drive. It is still the fastest and is becoming the most inexpensive as the hard drive price keeps falling. You don't need any special software to backup or restore data. However, it is not a removable medium unless a mobile rack is added. The second one is a tape drive. It is still the most popular one for routine backing up of an entire hard drive. It's capacity varies from 250MB to 27GB. It is, however, much slower than a hard drive and often requires special software to restore data. The third and latest one is CD-R and CD-RW drives. The blank CD-R and CD-RW media are much cheaper than a tape data cartridge. The CD media are almost universally accepted, making restoring and sharing data much easier. The media are also water, dust, and age-resistant. In addition to data files, CD-R and CD-RW can also record audio and music files. However, their capacity is still limited to 1GB or less.
A CD-RW will function as a CD-ROM drive for reading audio and data CDs. However, you often need a secondary CD-ROM drive to copy data from one CD to another.
Any backup system is only as good as the person who uses it. If no one does routine backup, the backup drive is useless. Drives themselves would not prevent data loss from the loss of an entire system due to theft, flood and fire. For such situations, it is important to have data backed up on removable media and such media are routinely placed in a safe location that's different from the drive itself. You may consider using remote access software to backup data files remotely.
The ultimate data backup method is a raid system where data is mirrored among multiple hard drives. Should one hard drive fail, the same data is still working on the other mirrored hard drives. However, this method requires an expensive raid controller, multiple hard drives, and special software. It is often reserved for data-critical business applications.
If you find this article useful, please create a link to it from your website or tell a friend about it. If you have any comments or suggestions about this article, please email information@directron.us
|
Other "How to Choose" Tips | Microprocessor | Memory | Motherboard | Hard Drive |
| Monitor | Video Card | Sound Card | Network | Go to Top | Home |
| Comments on the above tips? | Other Resources |
Copyright (C) 1997-2006 Directron.com/HCCI. All rights reserved
| Back to Top / Order This Item |
|
|
Shipping Policy |
|
Customer Services |
|
Payment Policy |
|
|
Est. Shipping
Cost
Time-in-Transit Map
FAQ - Shipping
Top Reasons for
Delays
UPS,
FedEx,
Postal
Office
Walk-in Sales
APO/FPO Shipping
International
Tracking Orders |
Return Rates
Store Statistics
Customer Satisfaction
Account Applications
Frequent Errors
FAQ-Services
FAQ-Tech Support
Newsletter
Order Status |
Credit Card via Phone
Purchase Order
Prepay, PayPal
Resellers
Corporate
Schools,
Government
Terms & Conditions
Price & Tax
FAQ-Payment
|
|
Top Brands |
|
Abit,
Acer,
AMD, Antec,
AOpen,
Asus,
ATI,
Biostar,
Buffalo,
Cooler Master, Corsair, Creative, Dell, D-Link,
Enermax,
FSP,
Gigabyte,
Hauppauge,
HP,
Intel,
InWin,
Kingston,
Lenovo,
Lian-Li,
Linksys,
Lite-On,
Logisys,
Logitech,
Maxtor,
Microsoft,
MSI,
Mushkin,
Netgear,
OCZ,
Seagate,
Shuttle,
Sony,
SuperMicro,
ThermalTake,
Vantec,
ViewSonic,
Western Digital,
XFX,
Zalman.
|
Have a question about our products, services or technical issues?
Find the answer instantly! Type your question or key words in English:
95% email/ phone questions already have answers on our web site.
|
Copyright (c) 1997-2009 Directron.com, Inc., Houston, Texas
Buy -
Sell -
Trade -
Build -
Repair -
Upgrade -
Help -
Troubleshoot -
Shopping
Computers -
Laptops -
Servers -
Hardware -
Parts -
Software -
Peripherals -
Services
High Quality -
Low Prices -
Discount Shop -
Large Selection -
Free Products -
Fast Shipping
Affiliates: Dallas Computer Store - San Antonio Computer Store - K12 Education Computer Systems |
| |
Customer Feedback through Yahoo!
