Friday, July 22, 2011

stroge device

Data storage device

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Many different consumer electronic devices can store data.
Edison cylinder phonograph ca. 1899. The Phonograph cylinder is a storage medium. The phonograph may or may not be considered a storage device.
A reel-to-reel tape recorder (Sony TC-630). The magnetic tape is a data storage medium. The recorder is data storage equipment using a portable medium (tape reel) to store the data.
Crafting tools such as paint brushes can be used as data storage equipment. The paint and canvas can be used as data storage media.
RNA might be the oldest data storage medium,[1] now replaced by DNA in most organisms.
A data storage device is a device for recording (storing) information (data). Recording can be done using virtually any form of energy, spanning from manual muscle power in handwriting, to acoustic vibrations in phonographic recording, to electromagnetic energy modulating magnetic tape and optical discs.
A storage device may hold information, process information, or both. A device that only holds information is a recording medium. Devices that process information (data storage equipment) may either access a separate portable (removable) recording medium or a permanent component to store and retrieve information.
Electronic data storage is storage which requires electrical power to store and retrieve that data. Most storage devices that do not require vision and a brain to read data fall into this category. Electromagnetic data may be stored in either an analog or digital format on a variety of media. This type of data is considered to be electronically encoded data, whether or not it is electronically stored in a semiconductor device, for it is certain that a semiconductor device was used to record it on its medium. Most electronically processed data storage media (including some forms of computer data storage) are considered permanent (non-volatile) storage, that is, the data will remain stored when power is removed from the device. In contrast, most electronically stored information within most types of semiconductor (computer chips) microcircuits are volatile memory, for it vanishes if power is removed.
With the exception of barcodes and OCR data, electronic data storage is easier to revise and may be more cost effective than alternative methods due to smaller physical space requirements and the ease of replacing (rewriting) data on the same medium. However, the durability of methods such as printed data is still superior to that of most electronic storage media. The durability limitations may be overcome with the ease of duplicating (backing-up) electronic data.

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[edit] Terminology

Devices that are not used exclusively for recording (e.g. hands, mouths, musical instruments) and devices that are intermediate in the storing/retrieving process (e.g. eyes, ears, cameras, scanners, microphones, speakers, monitors, video projectors) are not usually considered storage devices. Devices that are exclusively for recording (e.g. printers), exclusively for reading (e.g. barcode readers), or devices that process only one form of information (e.g. phonographs) may or may not be considered storage devices. In computing these are known as input/output devices.
All information is data. However, not all data is information.
Many data storage devices are also media players. Any device that can store and playback multimedia may also be considered a media player such as in the case with the HDD media player. Designated hard drives are used to play saved or streaming media on home entertainment systems.

[edit] Trends

International Data Corporation estimated that the total amount of digital data was 281 billion gigabytes in 2007, and had for the first time exceeded the amount of storage.[2]

[edit] Data storage equipment

Any input/output equipment may be considered data storage equipment if it writes to and reads from a data storage medium. Data storage equipment uses either:
  • portable methods (easily replaced),
  • semi-portable methods requiring mechanical disassembly tools and/or opening a chassis, or
  • inseparable methods meaning loss of memory if disconnected from the unit.
The following are examples of those methods:

[edit] Portable methods

[edit] Semi-portable methods

[edit] Inseparable methods

[edit] Recording medium

A recording medium is a physical material that holds data expressed in any of the existing recording formats. With electronic media, the data and the recording medium is sometimes referred to as "software" despite the more common use of the word to describe computer software. With (traditional art) static media, art materials such as crayons may be considered both equipment and medium as the wax, charcoal or chalk material from the equipment becomes part of the surface of the medium.
Some recording media may be temporary either by design or by nature. Volatile organic compounds may be used to preserve the environment or to purposely make data expire over time. Data such as smoke signals or skywriting are temporary by nature. Depending on the volatility, a gas (e.g. atmosphere, smoke) or a liquid surface such as a lake would be considered a temporary recording medium if at all.

[edit] Ancient and timeless examples

The Gutenberg Bible displayed by the United States Library of Congress, demonstrating printed pages as a storage medium.
A set of index cards in a file box are a nonlinear storage medium.

[edit] Modern examples by energy used

Graffiti on a public wall. Public surfaces are being used as unconventional data storage media, often without permission.
Photographic film is a photochemical data storage medium
A floppy disk is a magnetic data storage medium
Hitachi 2.5 inch laptop hard drive. A hard drive is both storage equipment and a storage medium

[edit] Modern examples by shape

A typical way to classify data storage media is to consider its shape and type of movement (or non-movement) relative to the read/write device(s) of the storage apparatus as listed:
Bekenstein (2003) foresees that miniaturization might lead to the invention of devices that store bits on a single atom.[4]

[edit] Weight and volume

Especially for carrying around data, the weight and volume per MB are relevant. They are quite large for written and printed paper compared with modern electronic media. On the other hand, written and printer paper do not require (the weight and volume of) reading equipment, and handwritten edits only require simple writing equipment, such as a pen.
With mobile data connections the data need not be carried around to have them available.

[edit] See also

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input device

Input device

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In computing, an input device is any peripheral (piece of computer hardware equipment) used to provide data and control signals to an information processing system such as a computer or other information appliance. Input and output devices make up the hardware interface between a computer and a scanner or 6DOF controller.
Many input devices can be classified according to:
  • modality of input (e.g. mechanical motion, audio, visual, etc.)
  • the input is discrete (e.g. key presses) or continuous (e.g. a mouse's position, though digitized into a discrete quantity, is fast enough to be considered continuous)
  • the number of degrees of freedom involved (e.g. two-dimensional traditional mice, or three-dimensional navigators designed for CAD applications)
Pointing devices, which are input devices used to specify a position in space, can further be classified according to:
  • Whether the input is direct or indirect. With direct input, the input space coincides with the display space, i.e. pointing is done in the space where visual feedback or the cursor appears. Touchscreens and light pens involve direct input. Examples involving indirect input include the mouse and trackball.
  • Whether the positional information is absolute (e.g. on a touch screen) or relative (e.g. with a mouse that can be lifted and repositioned)
Direct input is almost necessarily absolute, but indirect input may be either absolute or relative. For example, digitizing graphics tablets that do not have an embedded screen involve indirect input and sense absolute positions and are often run in an absolute input mode, but they may also be set up to simulate a relative input mode where the stylus or puck can be lifted and repositioned.

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Keyboards

Main article: Computer keyboard
A 'keyboard' is a human interface device which is represented as a layout of buttons. Each button, or key, can be used to either input a linguistic character to a computer, or to call upon a particular function of the computer. Traditional keyboards use spring-based buttons, though newer variations employ virtual keys, or even projected keyboards.
Examples of types of keyboards include:

Pointing devices

Main article: Pointing device
A computer mouse
A pointing device is any human interface device that allows a user to input spatial data to a computer. In the case of mice and touch screens, this is usually achieved by detecting movement across a physical surface. Analog devices, such as 3D mice, joysticks, or pointing sticks, function by reporting their angle of deflection. Movements of the pointing device are echoed on the screen by movements of the cursor, creating a simple, intuitive way to navigate a computer's GUI.

High-degree of freedom input devices

Some devices allow many continuous degrees of freedom as input. These can be used as pointing devices, but are generally used in ways that don't involve pointing to a location in space, such as the control of a camera angle while in 3D applications. These kinds of devices are typically used in CAVEs, where input that registers 6DOF is required.

Composite devices

Wii Remote with attached strap
Input devices, such as buttons and joysticks, can be combined on a single physical device that could be thought of as a composite device. Many gaming devices have controllers like this. Technically mice are composite devices, as they both track movement and provide buttons for clicking, but composite devices are generally considered to have more than two different forms of input.

Imaging and Video input devices

Video input devices are used to digitize images or video from the outside world into the computer. The information can be stored in a multitude of formats depending on the user's requirement.
Medical Imaging

Audio input devices

In the fashion of video devices, audio devices are used to either capture or create sound. In some cases, an audio output device can be used as an input device, in order to capture produced sound.
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Output Devices

Output device

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The following text needs to be harmonized with text in Display device.
This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2007)
An output device is any piece of computer hardware equipment used to communicate the results of data processing carried out by an information processing system (such as a computer) to the outside world.
In computing, input/output, or I/O, refers to the communication between an information processing system (such as a computer), and the outside world. Inputs are the signals or data sent to the system, and outputs are the signals or data sent by the system to the outside.
Examples of output devices:

See also

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