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Bindu Trikha / (IJCSE) International Journal on Computer Science and Engineering
Vol. 02, No. 04, 2010, 1449-1452
A Journey from floppy disk to cloud storage
Bindu Trikha
Lecturer(IT)
I.M.S Ghaziabad
Abstract- Data storage and backup needs have evolved
over the years necessitating the need for evolution of
data storage methods and devices. The needs for a
higher storage capacity as well as versatility of storage
devices and the need for technologically advanced
storage devices became apparent.
INTRODUCTION
Once upon a time, storage devices were simple
hardware under the direct control of computer. Since those
times, storage devices have grown substantially in quantity
and in complexity. The invention of the computer really
marked the starting of new era in human life style. It not
only made the work simple and easy, but it stored the data in
a highly secure manner. In the initial stages the
storage devices were mostly based on magnetic elements.
This study reviews the evolution of the storage systems
from early mechanical systems to magnetic storage to
optical storage to cloud storage. Backup is the activity of
copying files or databases, so that their additional copies
may be restored in case of a data loss accident. Thus, we can
emphasize first two aspects related to backup - storage
media for data and depositories for backup media. Another
important aspect is growing necessity in backup caused by
development of computer technologies and data volumes
expansion. The first computer backups were made onto big
reels of magnetic tape, and even paper: punch cards and
paper tape. In the next era, backups were mostly stored on
floppy disks of various sizes. But today’s PCs don’t even
have floppy drives, not to mention punch card processing
devices. Backups are now written on CDs, hard drives, flash
drives or via network. But some technologies, such as tape
backup, still remain very popular and develop. Let’s take a
closer look at the history of these devices and methods and
try to correlate them with backup.
EVOLUTION OF BACKUP DEVICES
Punch cards
The oldest known form of data storage is from 1725
and was done by Basile Bouchon when he used a perforated
paper loop to store patterns that were to be used on cloth.
But the first real patent for some kind of data storage is
dated back in 23 Sep 1884 by Herman Hollerith – an
invention that was used for nearly 100 years until the mid
1970s. Thus, Punch cards can be considered as the first data
storage devices for backup. Punch cards essentially
correspond to the definition of backup, because the
additional copies of punch cards were made also to restore
data in case of a loss.
Magnetic Tapes
Though punch cards have been used for over than
200 years in various fields of expertise, but they actually
were slow, low-capacity and required a lot of devices,
efforts and time for processing. That’s why, the punch card
were gradually replaced by better, more capable and more
efficient magnetic tape. In the 1950s magnetic tapes was
first used by IBM to store data on magnetic tape. Since one
roll of magnetic tape could store as much data as 10 000
punch cards it achieved instant success and became the most
popular way of storing of computer data until the mid
1980s.
Hard Drives
In 1956 IBM introduced the first hard drive - IBM
305 RAMAC. It was a revolution since it could store up to
4.4MB of data (5 million characters) – an enormous amount
of data back then. The hard drive is still a product that is
under constant development. The Hitachi Deskstar 7K500
that you can see on the image above is the first hard disk
drive that can store 500 GB of data – or approximately 120
000 times more data than the world’s first hard drive IBM
305 RAMAC.
Floppy Disks
In 1969 the first floppy disk was introduced. It was
a read-only 8-inch disk that could store 80kB of data. Four
years later, in 1973, a similar floppy disk with the same size
could store 256kB of data, and it was rewritable. Since then
the trend has been the same – smaller floppy disks and
higher data capacity. In the late 1990s you could easily store
250 MB of data on а 3-inch disk. Floppy disks were
considered as revolutionary media for transporting data
from one computer to another. They could not store as much
data as hard disks, but, being much cheaper and more
flexible, they became very widespread. Of course, this trend
affected the backup sphere.
CD-R/RW and DVD
Though the 3.5-inch floppy disk had been a boon to
home users and small businesses who needed backups, they
h
ad
relatively low capacity. This problem had been solved
with introduction of the next generation in storage media:
CD-Recordable (CD-R) and CD-Rewritable (CD-RW)
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Bindu Trikha / (IJCSE) International Journal on Computer Science and Engineering
Vol. 02, No. 04, 2010, 1449-1452
drives. The Compact Disc, first invented by Philips and
Sony in 1979, reached the market in late 1982. A typical CD
of today can store 700 MB of data. A DVD (Digital
Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc) is basically a CD that
uses a different kind of laser technology which makes it
possible to store more data on the same amount of space. A
dual layer DVD can store 8.5GB of data.
Flash Drives
Portable USB storage flash drives, invented in 1998, are
rather new to the
world of data backup, but they have already become very
popular. The smallest of these drives stores several times
more data than a traditional 3,5 inch floppy disk, and larger
ones can hold as much data as a CD-ROM or even more.
Considering the size, power and cost-effectiveness of these
drives, it is no wonder that they are becoming a powerful
force in the data backup market.
Blu-ray Disks and HD-DVD
Blu-laser discs using organic dyes, such as the Sony Blu-ray
format (between 23GB and 54GB) and Toshiba’s HD-DVD
are the next step to further reduction of the cost of
removable media along with capacity growth and
improvement of usability. They appeared on the market in
2006 and are already considered as promising devices for
data backup.
Network and On-line Backup Solutions or cloud storage
Development of backup is closely connected to the
evolution of network and Internet technologies. Local and
global networks enabled use of remote computers storage
volumes all over the world for your critical data backups. To
get protected against a disaster or other site-specific
problem, many people prefer to send backup files to an off-
site vault.
FLOPPY DISK IS DEAD. TIME TO MOVE TO CLOUD
Sony has signaled what could be the final end of
the venerable floppy disk. The electronics giant has said it
will stop selling the 30-year-old storage media in Japan
from March 2011.Earlier this year Sony stopped selling the
disks in most international markets due to dwindling
demand and competition from other storage formats. The
slow death of the “floppy” or “diskette” began in 1998 when
Apple decided to not include a floppy drive in its G3 iMac
computer. Since then various other firms have stopped
support for floppy disks, including computer giant Dell in
2003. Computing store PC World stopped selling them in
2007. However, Sony has continued to sell the disks, and
continues to ship them in the millions. Now, the firm -
which claims to have produced the first 3.5in (9cm) disks in
1981 - has decided to halt sales completely faced with
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Bindu Trikha / (IJCSE) International Journal on Computer Science and Engineering
Vol. 02, No. 04, 2010, 1449-1452
competition from online storage, [online backup] and
portable USB drives.
For some computer owners, finding enough storage
space to hold all the data they've acquired is a real
challenge. Some people invest in larger hard drives. Others
prefer external storage devices like thumb drives or compact
discs. Desperate computer owners might delete entire
folders worth of old files in order to make space for new
information. But some are choosing to rely on a growing
trend: cloud storage. On the surface, cloud storage has
several advantages over traditional data storage. For
example, if one stores his data on a cloud storage system,
he'll be able to get to that data from any location that has
Internet access. One wouldn't need to carry around a
physical storage device or use the same computer to save
and retrieve his information. With the right storage system,
one can even allow other people to access the data, turning a
personal project into a collaborative effort. So cloud storage
is convenient and offers more flexibility.
HOW CLOUD STORAGE WORKS?
A cloud storage system needs just one data server
connected to the Internet. A client (e.g., a computer user
subscribing to a cloud storage service) sends copies of files
over the Internet to the data server, which then records the
information. When the client wishes to retrieve the
information, he or she accesses the data server through a
Web-based interface. The server then either sends the files
back to the client or allows the client to access and
manipulate the files on the server itself. Cloud storage
systems generally rely on hundreds of data servers. Because
computers occasionally require maintenance or repair, it's
important to store the same information on multiple
machines. This is called redundancy. Without redundancy, a
cloud storage system couldn't ensure clients that they could
access their information at any given time. Most systems
store the same data on servers that use different power
supplies. That way, clients can access their data even if one
power supply fails. Cloud storage clients are not at all
worried about running out of storage space. They use cloud
storage as a way to create backups of data. If something
happens to the client's computer system, the data survives
off-site. It's a digital-age variation of “Don't put all your
eggs in one basket”.
EXAMPLES OF CLOUD STORAGE
There are hundreds of cloud storage providers on
the Web, and their numbers seem to increase every day. Not
only are there a lot of companies competing to provide
storage, but also the amount of storage each company offers
to clients seems to grow regularly.
Google Docs allows users to upload documents,
spreadsheets and presentations to Google's data servers.
Users can edit files using a Google application. Users can
also publish documents so that other people can read them
or even make edits, which means Google Docs is also an
example of cloud computing.
Web e-mail providers like Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo!
Mail store e-mail messages on their own servers. Users
can access their e-mail from computers and other devices
connected to the Internet.
Sites like Flickr and Picasa host millions of digital
photographs. Their users create online photo albums by
uploading pictures directly to the services' servers.
YouTube hosts millions of user-uploaded video files.
Web site hosting companies like StartLogic, Hostmonster
and GoDaddy store the files and data for client Web sites.
Services like Xdrive, MediaMax and Strongspace offer
storage space for any kind of digital data.
Some of the services listed above are free. Others charge a
flat fee for a certain amount of storage, and still others have
a sliding scale depending on
what th
e client needs.
CONCERNS ABOUT CLOUD STORAGE
The two biggest concerns about cloud storage are
reliability and security. Clients aren't likely to entrust their
data to another company without a guarantee that they'll be
able to access their information whenever they want and no
one else will be able to get at it. To secure data, most
systems use a combination of techniques, including:
Encryption, which means they use a complex algorithm to
encode information. To decode the encrypted files, a user
needs the encryption key. While it's possible to crack
encrypted information, most hackers don't have access to the
amount of computer processing power they would need to
decrypt information.
Authentication processes, which require creating a user
name and password.
Authorization practices -- the client lists the people who
are authorized to access information stored on the cloud
system. Many corporations have multiple levels of
authorization. For example, a front-line employee might
have very limited access to data stored on a cloud system,
while the head of human resources might have extensive
access to files.
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Bindu Trikha / (IJCSE) International Journal on Computer Science and Engineering
Vol. 02, No. 04, 2010, 1449-1452
Even with these protective measures in place, many people
worry that data saved on a remote storage system is
vulnerable. There's always the possibility that a hacker will
find an electronic back door and access data. Hackers could
also attempt to steal the physical machines on which data
are stored. A disgruntled employee could alter or destroy
data using his or her authenticated user name and password.
Cloud storage companies invest a lot of money in security
measures in order to limit the possibility of data theft or
corruption. The other big concern, reliability, is just as
important as security. An unstable cloud storage system is a
liability. No one wants to save data to a failure-prone
system, nor do they want to trust a company that isn't
financially stable. While most cloud storage systems try to
address this concern through redundancy techniques, there's
still the possibility that an entire system could crash and
leave clients with no way to access their saved data. If a
company can't meet these basic client expectations, it
doesn't have much of a chance - there are too many other
options available on the market.
THE FUTURE OF CLOUD STORAGE
"The big thing this year will be the entrance of
traditional IT suppliers, like IBM, HP, and Microsoft.
Published reports also continue to stoke discussion on a
possible new entry from Google. But it won't just be major
vendors capitalizing on the hot trend. Vaultscape launched a
storage cloud specifically designed to handle archival
storage for enterprise companies that have large amounts of
data. Vaultscape's differentiators include a self-healing file
system and "multi-master architecture," with two
independent vaults that are available at all times. Data is
replicated to two different geographic locations, but it is not
done through a single core, so there is no single point of
failure. Vaultscape is showing how the industry is maturing
so there are storage clouds focused on specific needs within
the large storage world. "It's not a one-size-fits-all world".
Storage Switzerland's Crump predicts the next two years
will be good for cloud storage vendors. The challenge for
potential customers will be sifting through the many choices
that will flood the market."Cloud storage should be one of
those technologies that benefits from a down economy”.
Buying your storage a gigabyte at a time as opposed to a
complete system may make a lot of sense for companies
with very tight budgets.
CONCLUSION
Thus with the advent of time there is always a need
for better options in terms of back up storage and as on date
the best option available for internet users is Cloud Storage
as backup store.
REFERENCES
[1] "The Future of Tape: Containing the Information Explosion".
http://www.imation.ae/about_imation/50years/future_tape.html.
Retrieved 7 October 2008.
[2] Bajorek,C.H., and C.D.Mee, ”Trends in storage technology
through the year 2000”, McGraw-Hill Professional, 1996.
[3] Robert J Cone, Patricia Barnes Svarney, Patricia Barnes
Svarney, “How The New Technology Works”, Universities
Press, Edition 2,1998.
[4] Donald H. Sanders, “Computers Today”, McGraw Hill
Publishing, 1988.
[5] Bruce Jacob, Spencer W. Ng, Spencer Ng, David T. Wang,
“Memory systems: Cache, DRAM, Disk”, Morgan Kaufmann,
2007
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