Any owner of a personal computer or laptop certainly had to hear about external devices for storing information, but what it was and how it looked, it was not possible to see in reality. It's time to bridge the gaps in knowledge and get acquainted with wonderful gadgets and technologies that can make life easier for any user.
The focus of this article is external storage devices. The reader is invited to find out how they look, their principle of operation and the main purpose of the application of this technique in everyday life. Also, the user will get acquainted with modern devices, find out their characteristics, types and classification.
There must always be a motive
Any equipment that appears on the market must certainly perform some tasks, otherwise there will simply be no demand for a new product. External storage devices (VZU) are required to store data. Moreover, the information in such cases has large volumes and must be preserved in integrity for a long period of time. Accordingly, the requirements for the devices themselves are also manifested: reliability and bulkiness, without which there will be no result. However, the reader should know that in addition to the basic requirements, there are secondary tasks:
- information recording speed - the higher it is, the better for the user;
- the cost of a recording device and storage media ;
- encryption support - there are also sensitive data;
- compatibility is good when the media can be read on another computer.
As practice shows, it is impossible to find a universal device that could satisfy all the requirements. Therefore, buyers often resort to balancing, deciding for themselves what is more important to them. In any case, each user finds on the market exactly what he needs.
End justifies the means
Many readers will be interested in the classification of external storage devices. It just so happened that in the computer market there is a strict separation of products according to their basic criteria:
- Capacitive . In the context of a large enterprise, which has a huge database, it is the capacity of the medium that comes first. Here we are talking about a minimum of a dozen terabytes that must be stored daily.
- High speed . In most cases, fast recording is needed only for those enterprises and organizations where it is required to save multimedia content (sound and video). It is worth noting that in such situations there is no talk of long-term data storage.
- Simple . In the home segment, cost and ease of use come first. Naturally, for the average user, compatibility and high speed of writing and reading information will not be superfluous.
- Reliable . This criterion is better called long-term, because the concepts of reliability for all storage media are different.
Is it necessary?
The purpose of external storage devices is different for each consumer. Large enterprises need to save changes to the database daily. The fact is that large amounts of information simply cannot be placed on the basis of several servers and many computers. And the documentation of past periods itself must always be consulted, for example, for analytics or for creating reports.
It’s convenient for home users to back up multimedia content by storing photos, videos, or music files. By the way, many owners of computers and laptops naively believe that information is already securely stored on your hard drive. However, few people know that a permanently working hard drive drastically reduces its service life and information that is not reserved can simply be lost. It is for these purposes that the computers of users in the store are equipped with DVD drives that allow recording to optical discs.
Universal optics
Yes, optical disc media is the simplest example. Here, external storage devices are CD, DVD, HD, and Blu-ray discs. The main criterion for such media is the high reliability of data storage. It averages 70-100 years. True, this indicator is feasible only with reliable protection of the drives from physical impact.
As for the volume, we can already see the division into categories, where CD- and DVD-disks are given 700 MB and 4 GB, respectively, and Blu-Ray media - 25-50 gigabytes. The cost of the writing device along with the media is growing evenly with the volume. Do not forget about the recording speed - since optical devices apply information to the disk by a linear method (there is only one laser), it takes a lot of time to write a large-capacity disk.
IT Advice
However, optical external computer storage devices are still popular among home users, and are also in demand in a small business where there is a document flow or a small database. Professionals recommend preferring ordinary DVD drives. The fact is that this device is in the middle ground by the criterion of "price-quality". And with compatibility, users will never have problems.
It is worth paying the user's attention to the possibility of overwriting information (although for this you will have to purchase the appropriate media). In any case, the buyer will receive a decent external storage device that has most of the necessary qualities. Well-established in the market of optical drives manufacturers LG, Samsung and Asus. But it is better to purchase media under the Verbatim brand - this company does not have defective products.
Non-volatile memory
Yes, ordinary flash drives and SSDs can also be considered as a memory device, however, when it comes to home use or short-term data storage. The fact is that capacities with non-volatile memory have a high price-to-volume ratio and are unreliable. As practice shows, the same USB flash drive is easily rendered unusable by the usual static discharge of electricity, which accumulates in the human body. This characteristic of modern external storage devices clearly does not play in favor of the seemingly simple and reliable equipment.
There is no illusion that the situation with NAND memory will change in the coming years. Volumes will grow in direct proportion to cost. The problem with statics cannot be solved, because then there will be no need for consumers to purchase new devices. For medium and large businesses, as well as for factories and enterprises, such a storage medium is unlikely to be useful as a reliable information keeper.
Untrusted devices
Experts recommend that all newcomers who are poorly versed in computer technology, exclude from the list such external storage devices as a memory card and flash drive. It’s not in vain that these products, even in storefronts, are located in the accessories department, and not with reliable data storage devices.
There are plenty of problems with such drives. Starting from a normal malfunction under the influence of static voltage, ending with a banal physical damage as a result of falling or getting moisture on the contacts of the device. Yes, this technique is inexpensive, it is convenient to operate and has a large volume. But its basic purpose is short-term data storage, which is necessary in case of transportation. This is where the merits of this product end.
How to choose a flash drive?
There is only one characteristic of external Flash-based storage devices - this is the data writing speed. No need for the buyer to look at the appearance or amenities, color or equipment, everything is decided by the built-in controller, which is simply obliged to work quickly regardless of the volume of the drive and the connection interface.
If we talk about memory cards, the choice here is quite simple - you need to focus on the device class. The lower it is, the slower the information is recorded on the medium. Ideally, preference is best given to the 10th grade and the marking Ultra. If we talk about brands, then Transcend, Pretec, SanDisk and Team are well established in the market.
But with USB-drives, everything is much more complicated. Here, most manufacturers are silent about the recording speed. These brands a priori should not even be given attention. All devices with decent speed directly on the packaging indicate the recording speed in USB 2.0 mode. Kingston, Pretec, and Transcend external storage devices are certainly leaders here. The write speed of such devices definitely exceeds 10 megabytes per second. And this is really a worthy indicator.
An interesting way out
It is worth noting that modern external storage devices, expensive SSDs, along with high-speed performance, also have decent reliability in a sense. The fact is that non-volatile memory cells under the influence of an electric field are not erased to zero, as is the case with conventional flash drives.
Yes, as a hard drive, an SSD will not work after damage. But it will turn into one huge flash drive, with which you can read the previously recorded information. It is this feature that attracts potential buyers to a completely new technology in the computer market, because the reliability of data storage is a priority for most.
Ready-made solutions in the computer market
The basic characteristic of external storage devices when it comes to SSDs is the minimum cost per unit of recorded information. That is, the user must determine in the market a product whose price corresponds to the volume. Finding out this is pretty simple - you need to divide the cost by the size of the SSD. So the buyer finds out how much 1 gigabyte of recorded information costs on the media. On average, the cost of 1 GB should be no more than 10-15 rubles.
It is logical to assume that it is advantageous to purchase a device with only a large amount of data (more than 640 gigabytes). Yes it is. As for specific brands, the choice here is quite large. The fact is that all manufacturers seek to win the favor of the buyer and provide really decent products on the market. Well-established brands: Transcend, Toshiba, Kingston and Samsung. The buyer should pay attention to the data transfer speed, it is different for each manufacturer.
Leap through the decades
To date, the most reliable and efficient device is a tape drive, which is capable of recording high-density data on a special magnetic tape cassette. Since the main characteristics of external storage devices are reliability and bulk, there are no more devices with similar characteristics all over the world. Here, the record is measured only in terabytes, and not in tens, but in hundreds. As for compatibility, there will not be any questions - knowing the key to the encoded information, it will be easy to read it from the cassette.
In general, there are a lot of interesting software for streamers that can modify (encode and compress) data, allowing the end user to increase the recording density or reliability of storage. Although technology has outlived its time, but due to the complete lack of replacement, developers, programmers and technologists, whose work is directly related to streamers, have to constantly improve the device and storage media, forcing the equipment to work to the limit of its capabilities.
There is always a choice
It is worth noting that users do not have to purchase the tape drive itself in the market. The fact is that the Russian instrument-making plant has long established the production of special adapter cards that can combine a conventional VCR and a personal computer. True, in this case, you will need an adapter for the cartridge.
The external storage devices of a computer called a streamer cannot be found on a regular computer market. This is specialized equipment and it can only be found at sellers who are engaged in the supply of server hardware. Streamers of the HP and Dell companies well proved. The brands on the market are not one decade old and managed to gain the trust of system administrators and IT specialists. There are also Chinese representatives with the Lenovo product on the market. They provide the user with decent functionality, but the demand for the new product is still too low.
Last century technology
Magnetic external storage devices, such as a tape drive or floppy disk, have one serious drawback, which can easily lead to the loss of important information on the media. The fact is that any magnet can be demagnetized. That is, any record, placed in a special electromagnetic field can be easily destroyed. In the context of a large enterprise, streamer cartridges are usually transported and stored in a specialized box that does not allow electromagnetic radiation to pass through.
Also, many experts are trying to attribute Floppy and ZIP-floppy disks to OVD. The conversation on these media is short. Technologies were relevant only at the stage of computer emergence. In the future, these media simply left the high-tech market, and are currently simply not considered to be a reliable data warehouse.
Low cost solution
External storage devices (VZU) include ordinary HDD winchesters. Many users are sure that these devices are inferior in reliability to other storage media, but this opinion is erroneous. The fact is that such reasoning of readers is led by cases related to the loss of important information in case of serious damage to the Windows operating environment. However, few people know that lost data is easy to recover using special utilities.
In fact, valuable information can be stored on hard magnetic disks for almost a decade, the main thing is to periodically rewrite data and monitor at the program level the integrity of the magnetic surface of the disk. By the way, it is an ordinary hard drive that ranks second after the streamer in terms of the profitability of acquiring it in the price-volume category.
No recommendation no purchase
After finding out that the external storage devices are ordinary hard drives, the reader will certainly want to know which product to give preference to, because there are so many different offers on the market. As practice shows, it is better to focus on the amount of buffer that any hard drive is equipped with. The spindle speed also plays an important role, however, it is this indicator that is inextricably linked to the noiseless operation - these two parameters are inversely proportional to each other.
As for the choice of the manufacturer, it is better to give preference to brands that are mentioned positively in user reviews: Seagate, Hitachi, Toshiba. Again, the buyer should be guided by the price of one gigabyte, dividing the cost of the hard drive by its volume. At least that’s how you can determine the feasibility of a purchase.
NAS platforms and RAID arrays
Taking this opportunity, I would like to note that on the basis of hard magnetic drives there are specialized types of external storage devices. It is about combining several hard drives into data arrays. A special controller at the hardware and software level is able to form disks, creating a parallel or serial connection. That is, several disks can be built as one large drive, or there is the possibility of duplication of recorded data on different storage media.
It all depends on the needs and capabilities of the user. For reliable storage, arrays are created that, like mirrors, duplicate important information. But for bulk use NAS-systems that can control the flow of information and quickly write important data to media.
Finally
Any user will agree that external storage devices are an integral part of a personal computer or laptop. , , , .
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