The Evolution of

Data Storage
By Austun Sheffer & Cory Nielsen
Pre-history

Ancient Times
Punch Cards
Punch Cards - first used around 1725 in
textile looms.
Widely used for computer input in the early
1950s.
Later replaced by Paper tape.
How punch cards work
Magnetic Drums
Stored Data on a large magnetic cylinder.

in the 1950s had storage
capacity of around 10KB.

pre-cursor to hard drives.
how magnetic drums work
Along the length of the drum read/write heads were
placed, one for each sector that change how the surface
is magnetized, this stores the data as 1 & 0s on the
magnetic surface of the drum.
when in use the unit controller selected the head for the
sector that the data is on and waits for the drum to rotate
to where the data is.


Magnetic Tape
First used to record computer data in 1951
Still being used today for data back-ups and
long term storage
(around 20 - 30 years).
In 2011 Magnetic Tape storage
had a capacity of 5TB.

How magnetic tape works
Similar to Magnetic Drums, tapes use a small strip of
plastic coated in a magnetic material to record data.

the tape is pulled across tiny magnets to read and write
data.

Floppy Disks
Came in many sizes
(8 - 1MB)(5.25 - 360KB)(31/2- 360 - 720
KB)
used a thin piece of magnetic film much like
magnetic tape.




How Floppy disks work
works the same way as magnetic tapes.

except instead of tape floppy disks use a thin
magnetic disk.

Optical Discs
uses light to read the information stored on
the disk.
well know formats of optical disks are:
CD - 730 MB
DVD - 4.7 - 9.4GB
BLU-RAY - 25 - 128GB
How Optical Discs work
Optical disks store data as microscopic
differences in the height of the disc.
a laser reads these differences and translates
them into usable data.

Hard Drives
like floppy discs, hard drives also use
magnetic technology.

instead of thin plastic discs, hard drives use
metal platters.


How hard drives work
hard drives use magnetism to read and write
data.
hard drives spin multiple platters at a very
high rpm. (5400 - 10K) then read heads for
each platter move to the exact position of
the data.
flash memory
flash memory describes any type of data
storage that use microchips to store data.
benefits to flash memory over other types
no moving parts
faster access to data
smaller size

how flash media works
flash memory uses EEPROM (Electronically
Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory)
chips, or a chip that can have data stored on
it.
cloud storage
cloud storage is where your data is stored off
site in large data centers.

examples:
Google Drive
SkyDrive(OneDrive)

how cloud storage works
you send your data (text, pictures, etc.) over
the internet to an offsite data center. the
company that owns the data center stores
your data until you need it again and sends
it back over the internet to you.
Works Cited

"Drum Memory." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Apr. 2014. Web. 30 Apr. 2014
"How It Works: Hard Drives | PCWorld." PCWorld. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
"HowStuffWorks "How Floppy Disk Drives Work"" HowStuffWorks. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2014.
Labriola, Don. "Optical Discs: How They Work." N.p., 18 May 2005. Web. 29 Apr. 2014.
"Magnetic Tape." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 25 Apr. 2014. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
"Punched Card." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 25 Apr. 2014. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.