Storage
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CD Burning
CD Burning has become very popular in part due to the ease, storage, and cost. Consumers can record data, music, pictures and videos once on a disk which typically holds 700MB. CD-R disks allow for it to be write once, but not erase. CD-RW on the other hand means it can be used more then once as the data on the disk can be erased.
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DVD Burning
The data on a DVD-RW disc can be erased and recorded over numerous times without damaging the medium. DVDs allow for much more data to be recorded on each disk. Totaling to more then 9 Gigabytes when both sides are used. Some examples for burning a DVD are: Transferring VHS movies and family videos to DVDs, Burn music and videos, copy DVDs, and back up purposes.
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Flash/Thumb Drives
USB Flash drives are great. They can hold lots of data, are small and light weight, and best of all USB drives are hot-swappable. USB drives also have no moving parts so therefore are less common to break down. We recommend purchasing at least a 256MB USB drive. This will provide plenty of room for documents, music, and photos.
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Floppy
1.44Megabyte is what a floppy drive just about holds or approximately 40 documents, or half of an Mp3 song. 1MB is the building blocks for 1GB.
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Hard Drives
Hard drives are like a cassette tape and a record player combined, with more advanced technology. Hard drives record data by organizing little pieces of metal just like a cassette tape, and spin to read and gather data just like a record player. Desktops currently use this as the main storage device. Hard drives now are available up to a whopping 1TeraByte. We recommend for the average user 80-120GB. This is plenty of storage depending on the users use of the computer.
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Tape
Most users have used or heard of a cassette tape, but what about for storage? Tapes are great for storage because of their low cost, and low price per Megabyte features. Companies use tape disks as high as 500 Gigabytes to back up data, but consumers are probably more familiar with another form for tape backup, the Zip disk.
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Zip Disk
Zip Disks were introduced by Iomega in late 1994 as an alternative to floppy disks. Originally it had a capacity of 100 Megabytes, but later versions became available for a 250 MB and 750 MB. Zip disks are being replaced by flash drives as they can carry more data, are smaller, and no moving parts. Data can also be retrieved and transferred faster on flash disks. Due to the possibility of stretching and bending of zip disks over time, we recommend they be replaced if used daily every 2-3 years.
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