Ram & Reason: Storage Revolution is Here!

Ram & Reason: The Storage Revolution Is Here! – Again
by Rob Rice April 2005

Anyone who has been around computers for a while should be able to see the difference; not long ago, say the early nineties, data storage meant hard drives and floppies. Then a small revolution happened with Iomega’s introduction of Bernoulli disks and later, Zip and competitor’s SyQuest drives. These re-writable disks could hold 100 megabytes of data as opposed to the floppy’s 1.44 megabytes. CD-ROMs were also bursting onto the scene and all the while the hard disk kept getting smaller in size, larger in capacity and ever faster. Just ten years earlier, a similar revolution occurred when Sony introduced the good old 3.5” floppy diskette. Smaller, more durable and with a larger capacity than the 5.25” flexible diskette, I can still remember people calling them “hard disks” because of the hard plastic shell, in contrast to the flexible envelope of the 5.25” they were accustomed to. The hard disk that we know today had also arrived in home PCs about this time, adding to the confusion that techs had to wade through as people struggled to get a grasp of the new terminology. Of course, the 5.25" flexible disk had created an even earlier revolution when it was developed by Alan Shugart for Wang Laboratories in 1976. It replaced IBM’s 8” disk, which held around 500 kilobytes of data.

Currently we are going through yet another storage revolution, but where this one differs from the others is, not only in media, but also in what is being done with that media.

The world on a disk
Our current revolution has its roots in the mid- and late-1990s with the introduction of the CD-ROM and the CD re-writable disks. CD burners have given home computers the ability to archive hundreds of megabytes of data. The first CDs mainly served to ship software that had outgrown the floppy disk, but soon, programs that were previously not possible because of their size suddenly became widespread, such as the Encyclopedia Britannica on CD. Within a few years, the CD and the CD burner put the capability of large data storage into the hands of the home user. Large home video files can be burned to CDs using, for example, the SVCD format, which gives decent quality and can be played on many of the newer home entertainment DVD players. Those home entertainment DVD players have also picked up the ability to read and write DVDs and CDs, allowing for the first time a likely replacement for the much beloved VCR.

While Windows has been around much longer than some people would have expected, Linux continues to gain in popularity and has demonstrated a remarkable flexibility in the hands of the Open Source community. Take for example the LiveCD. A LiveCD is a complete operating system (usually Linux but others are available) on a CD or even a DVD that can be booted and ran without any installation on the hard drive. Just pop it into the CD drive, reboot your computer and if it is setup to be able to boot from a CD (most are these days), the LiveCD will boot up instead of Windows, or whatever is on the hard disk. These are excellent for learning, data recovery, special configurations, or just trying out a new operating system or program. And the beauty of it is that many are available for free. The LiveCD List at this writing is displaying 232 LiveCDs and DVDs. Several are optimized for specific uses, such as servers, security, diagnostics, forensics, gaming, and a host of others.

Technology changed in a flash
In the late 1980s, Toshiba & Intel introduced flash memory and by doing so created a revolution that has spawned large waves throughout technology. From computing and photography, to aerospace and medicine, flash media has left few fields untouched. For computing, the flash drive has had the greatest impact. The size of a lipstick case, it is used not only to store and transfer files, it also can be used to play music or run presentations. By acting as a key or by using your fingerprint, it can even secure sensitive data. Examples are the iKey 1000 and the Cruzer™ Profile.

Flash drives have been a mixed blessing as far as security is concerned. On the one hand, flash drives can be found in pens and watches, making data theft extremely easy. On the other hand, flash drives can be used as a portable data vault with its contents securely encrypted.

Concerned about leaving sensitive information behind on borrowed computers? Lexar has introduced the JumpDrive Traveler, a flash drive that enables Internet browsing from a computer without leaving history or session information. Portable Firefox is a similar idea that is a fully functional version of the Firefox Web browser optimized for use on a USB key drive.

Computer on a stick
Like the LiveCD, a USB flash drive can be used to boot a computer (providing the computer has the capability and it is enabled) and run an operating system on it. However, this approach is still in its infancy as few computers can boot from USB. Also, not all flash devices are bootable. However, expect change to come rapidly.

What is available right now is Migo, (remember the flash drive in a wristwatch?). Migo fits on a flash drive and allows you to take your desktop environment with you. E-mail, Internet favorites, calendars, files and folders can all be accessed by just plugging into a USB port.

While solid-state flash memory hard drives are a current reality, they are still too expensive and their capacity too small for much of the market. This reality keeps the door open for further refinement of old technologies.

Flash to the competition
Not all that looks like flash is flash. The IBM/Hitachi Microdrive has been around for a while now; a miniature hard drive just like the one in your desktop computer it has given the Compact Flashcard, which is the same size, a serious run for its money. But that has not stopped the competition from taking a crack at building a true ultra-small hard drive as well. Cornice has developed a drive with a 1” form factor that is less than a quarter inch thick. Available under the MPIO label, these drives are inexpensive and very durable. The 1.5 gigabyte MPIO HS100 looks like a flash drive but costs less than many flash drives of the same size. It also contains a true hard drive, complete with a spinning platter.

New uses for old technology are also seeing a mini-revolution. Aluminum hard drive cases with USB and Firewire connections allow one to convert that old hard drive, or laptop drive, into a type of flash drive. Just pop the drive into the case and plug it into a USB or Firewire port and you have an extra hard drive. So, you want more capacity? For under $100, one can buy a 30-40 gigabyte notebook hard drive and an external enclosure and you have a small portable storage device with BIG capacity.

Yet, through it all the resilient hard drive has been with us. It too went through a revolution only a few short years ago. While its demise had been predicted because the theoretical limits on its capacity had been reached the industry achieved a breakthrough so that soon half a terabyte of information will be stored on a conventional hard drive.

While the current data storage revolution shows no sign of abating, brace yourself, the next revolution is just around the corner. But you can bet that the good old hard drive will continue getting smaller in size, larger in capacity and ever faster.

Rob Rice is a computer specialist working in Anchorage, Alaska. Rob can be contacted at articles@isp.com