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tods5eshoes · Wysłany: Nie 3:11, 13 Mar 2011 Temat postu: ferragamo shoe 4569

Are Flash Drives a Threat to Hard Drives?
Hard disks for the last half a century or so have been the device of choice as primary storage media for digital machines. There are many reasons for this. First of all is the huge capacity. Hard disks which are commonly available in the market today have capacities ranging from 60 GB to a whopping 250 GB. This is more than sufficient for data storage needs of most individuals and companies, even for data-intensive work such as graphics and animation. There is no other device currently available that can boast this kind of capacities. Optical disks have a capacity of only 4. 6 GB while for tape drives this figure is about 100 GB.
Another thing that makes hard disks top candidates for primary data storage devices for computers is their random access. In these disks, data is stored on a series of platters which are coated with magnetic paint. The data is read and written by a head that carries an electro-magnet. When the hard disk is switched on, the platters begin to be rotated by a spindle motor at a very fast speed, typically 5, 400 or 7,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], 200 RPM.
The head, controlled by an actuator arm, can swing instantly over any part of the platter to extract or write data. This arrangement where the data-recording surface and the head, both are capable of movement and the former is fully exposed and accessible to the latter,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], enables a hard drive to offer random data access. In this, no matter on which part of the data-recording surface a file is residing, it can be instantly extracted by the read / write head on the instructions of the operating system.
This unbeatable combination of random access and high capacity has given hard disks a virtual monopoly of the primary storage devices market for computers and laptops. That is, until now. In the last few years, a new data storage technology has hit the market which holds great promise. This uses a flash memory circuit at its core to store digital data. Called variously as USB drives, thumb drives and key-chain drives, these devices are quite small in size, no larger than a mana�? s thumb but still offer data capacities that are much larger than digital video disks (DVDs). The ordinarily available USB drives have capacities ranging from 1 GB to 8 GB, though those with a capacity of 20 GB and above are also available.
The USB drives offer phenomenal advantages over hard drives. The biggest one of these is that they have no moving parts inside. There are no rotating platters or spindle motor. There is only one small chip on which all data gets stored electronically. Since these drives do not use magnetic principles to store data, they are totally immune to strong magnetic fields, unlike hard drives. These also do not undergo impact trauma, because the data-recording chip safely resides inside a tough and protective plastic shell.
Also, since there are no moving parts inside which are poised delicately like in a hard drive, USB drives are totally shock-proof and have a high resistance to water or fire damage. They also use hardly any electric power because there is no motor inside that has to spin platters at a high speed. USB drives typically give data-access speeds about 50 times faster than hard drives!
Due to these benefits, they are much better suited to be primary storage devices for computers compared to hard drives. However, there was one problem till now a�� they did not have high capacities. This is changing as the flash-memory technology develops and matures further. Recently, USB drives have been launched in the market that have a capacity as high as 64 GB! With this development, these have become viable replacements for hard drives,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], particularly since their prices have nose-dived and become quite competitive in the last couple of years.
Indeed, Sony has recently launched a notebook computer that has a high-capacity flash drive instead of hard drive inside it. Because the former hardly consumes any power, the laptopa�? s battery lasts an amazing 12 hours on a single charge. Also,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the programmes open much faster because of the high seek time. The booting up time is also very less since there is instant data access without any warm-up period such as in a hard disk.
USB drives today pose a clear and present danger to the future of hard drives as primary data storage media for computers and laptops. It is only a matter of time before they begin to dominate the market and bring the 50-year-old reign of hard disks to an end.
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