Any electronic computers include memory drives. Without them, the operator would not be able to save the result of his work or copy to another medium.
Punch cards
At the dawn of the advent of computer technology , punch cards were used to store information - ordinary cardboard cards with digital markings.
On one punch card 80 columns were located, in each column it was possible to save 1 bit of information. The holes in these columns corresponded to one. Data reading occurred sequentially. It was impossible to record anything on a punch card again, so a huge number of them were required. To store a 1 GB data array would require 22 tons of paper.
A similar principle was used in punched tapes. They wound on a bobbin, took up less space, but often torn and did not allow adding and editing data.
Floppy disks
The appearance of floppy disks was a real breakthrough in information technology. Compact, capacious, they allowed to store from 300 Kb on the earliest samples to 1.44 Mb on the latest versions. Reading and writing were carried out on a magnetic disk enclosed in a plastic case.
The main disadvantage of floppy disks was the fragility of the information stored on them. They were vulnerable to electromagnetic fields and could be demagnetized even in public transport - a trolleybus or tram, so they tried not to use them for long-term data storage. Floppy disks were read in drives. At first there were 5-inch floppy disks, then they were replaced by more convenient 3-inch disks.
The main competitor to floppy disks is flash drives. Their only drawback was the price, but as microelectronics developed, the cost of flash drives dropped dramatically and floppy disks went down in history. Finally, their release ceased in 2011.
Streamers
Streamers were previously used to store archive data. They looked like videotapes in appearance and in principle. Magnetic tape and two reels made it possible to read and write information sequentially. The capacity of these devices was up to 100 MB. Such drives did not receive mass distribution. Ordinary users preferred to store their data on hard drives, and it was more convenient to store music, movies, programs on CD-ROMs, and later DVD-ROMs.
CD and DVD
These storage devices are still in use. An active, reflective and protective layer is applied to the plastic substrate. Information from the disc is read by a laser beam. A standard disk has a capacity of 700 MB. This is enough, for example, to record a 2-hour movie in average quality. There are also double-sided discs when the active layer is sprayed onto both sides of the disc. To save a small amount of information used mini-CD. Drivers, instructions for computer products are now written specifically on them.
DVDs replaced CDs in 1996. They allowed to store information already 4.7 GB. Their advantage was also that the DVD drive could read both CD- and DVD-disks. At the moment, this is the most massive memory drive.
Flash drives
The CD and DVD drives discussed above have a number of advantages - low cost, reliability, the ability to store large amounts of information, but they are designed for one-time recording. You cannot make changes to the recorded disc, add or remove unnecessary ones. And here a fundamentally different drive comes to the rescue - flash memory.
For some time he competed with floppy disks, but quickly won this race. The main limiting factor was the price, but now it has been reduced to an acceptable level. Modern computers are no longer equipped with drives, so the flash drive has become an indispensable companion for everyone dealing with computer equipment. The maximum amount of information that fits on a USB flash drive reaches 1 Tb.
Memory cards
Phones, cameras, e-books, photo frames and much more that memory drives require for work. Because of its relatively large size, USB drives are not suitable for this purpose. Memory cards are specially designed for such cases. In fact, this is the same flash drive, but adapted for small-sized products. Most of the time, the memory card is in the electronic device and is removed only to transfer the accumulated data to a permanent medium.
There are many standards for memory cards, the smallest of them have a size of 14 by 12 mm. On modern computers, a card reader is usually installed instead of a drive, which allows you to read most types of memory cards.
Hard disks (HDD)
Storage drives for a computer are a hard drive. Inside it are metal plates coated on both sides with a magnetic composition. The engine rotates them at a speed of 5400 for older models or 7200 rpm for modern devices. The magnetic head moves from the center of the disk to its edge and allows you to read and write information. The volume of the hard drive depends on the number of disks in it. Modern models allow storing up to 8 Tb of information.
There are practically no drawbacks to this type of memory drives - these are very reliable and durable products. The cost of a unit of memory in hard drives is the cheapest among all types of drives.
Solid State Drives (SSD)
No matter how good the hard drives are, they have almost reached their ceiling. Their speed depends on the speed of rotation of the disks, and its further increase leads to physical deformation. Flash technology, which is used in the manufacture of solid-state memory drives, is devoid of these disadvantages. They do not contain moving parts, therefore they are not subject to physical wear and tear, are not afraid of shock effects and are not noisy.
But while there are serious flaws. First of all, the price. The cost of a solid state drive is 5 times higher than a hard drive of the same size. Another significant drawback is the short life. SSDs are usually chosen to install the operating system, and a hard drive is used to store data. The cost of solid-state drives is steadily decreasing, there are shifts in increasing their resource. In the near future, they should supplant traditional hard drives, as in due time flash drives supplanted floppy disks.
External drives
Internal storage and internal memory are good for everyone, but often you need to transfer information from one computer to another. Back in 1995, a USB interface was developed that allows you to connect a wide variety of devices to your PC, and memory drives are no exception. Initially, these were flash drives, later DVD players with a USB connector appeared, and finally, HDDs and SSDs.
The attractiveness of the USB interface is its simplicity - just stick a USB flash drive or other drive and you can work, you do not need to install a driver or other additional steps. The development of the interface and the emergence of USB 2.0 at first, and then USB 3.0 dramatically increased the speed of data exchange on this channel. The performance of the external drive now differs little from the internal one, and their size cannot but rejoice. An external memory drive easily fits in the palm of your hand, while it allows you to store hundreds of gigabytes of information.