Do you remember the last time you used the Fdd drive of your computer, and for what? opening is if you have used it then it would be for some crisis booting of the computer, or for salvage of your broken Os. Meaning you would have not used it for data replacement using this medium.
Currently this magnetic medium is fast getting substituted by the "flash Rom" drives that we also know by Pen Drive or Usb Drive. This new medium is killing the old magnetic medium for its reliability, speed and ever growing capacity.
Historically the secondary warehouse is all the time in the realm of change. Technology and needs are all the time pushing the medium smaller, faster, more reliable, regain and of addition capacity. Just like some 10 years back the 5.25" dives were substituted by this 3.5" drives for smaller size and larger capacity.
History
History of secondary warehouse is quiet interesting, as it has seen the use of papers to silicon to optical medium. With each generation it gets better, faster and smaller is size and all the time addition the warehouse capacity.
Paper Punch Card
Paper Punch cards used initially as the first external warehouse device. It used paper card/roll with holes as data. Meaning a hole was zero, and no hole was one. Programmers used to punch the card for providing input. Card printers were there to punch the yield for storage.
Floppy Drive (8")
Once the magnetic media started to be used for storage, paper media was swiftly made obsolete. Magnetic disks of round shape emerged as the approved for secondary warehouse device. It became very popular as it was more robust and handy than the paper roll, and could store more data.
Floppy Drive (5.25")
Further advancement in the material and magnetic technology in case,granted great density and in case,granted much higher warehouse capacity in smaller area. Now the disks also started to become duplicate sided providing even more data warehouse area in the same size disks.
Floppy Drive (3.5")
This media peaked with the 3.5" Fdd that was small and sturdy sufficient to be carred in the jeans pocket. Its case also in case,granted cover even for the area that is used for reading, resulting in more security from dust and humidity even when the floppy was not in any cover.
Zip Drive
This drive released in 1994 by a company called Iomega was capable of holding 100Mb of data. This also uses the magnetic coating like the quarterly floppy disks, but of higher capability and of first-rate technology. Due to this it needs specialized drives for reading and writing on this media. This made it a good backup drive (like tape drives), but not good for using it on any machine. Currently generation of Zip Disks can hold upto 250Mb of data.
Flash Drive (Usb Drive)
Also known as Pen Drive is the next revolution in secondary portable warehouse device. Initially emerged with merge of Mb warehouse capacity, it swiftly gained attraction due to its solid state rugged building and its capability of being used on any computer adequate with Usb port. Initially it needed a specific driver to be installed on the earlier Os in order to be used, but later, due to its universally open approved and rise in use of the Usb port, its preserve was in case,granted natively in the Os. (Windows/Macintosh/Linux supports it natively out of the box).
So now virtually nothing more is needed for this drive to work if you have a computer with a approved Usb port. Though the manufacturers are also providing added features to the hardware like encryption, but these features commonly requires added software/driver to be installed in order to be used. And since there is not much approved for these features yet it is mostly gismo specific and is largely ignored for its lack of compatibility.
This standardization of protocol has lead to not only popularity of the Usb flash drives, but has also in case,granted a common way for other media to act as drive via this protocol. So now there are warehouse products manufacture use of this approved to become Usb drives (also called Usb Mass Storage). Example includes:
- Usb Hard Disk Drives
- Zip Drive with Usb interface
- digital camera acting as an Usb drive for accessing the photographs directly on any computer
- Pdas like Palm that already associate to the computer using Usb acts as a Usb drive for accessing the data stored in its memory and Sd/Mmc Card
- Mp3 players that doubles as Usb drive!!
The list of applications are getting bigger and bigger, finally manufacture this drive a very popular and successful.
Currently 1 Gb Usb flash drives are available, and bigger drives are on the horizon.
Portable Usb Hdd
As mentioned above this medium is also getting popular and is popular generally for higher speed and capacity than what is currently in case,granted by the Usb flash drive. On the flip side it is still brittle (as having consuming element) and bulkier than the flash drive.
Holographic Drives
Last but not the least is this hereafter product. This is the media of the hereafter that uses technology that is still in its infancy - holography. Though holography and holograms are not new and was discovered in the late 1940s, but its application for data warehouse is something very new. A company called InPhase Technologies is one of the forerunners in this field that has prototyped disks that can hold 200Gb to 1.6Tb of data. This technology uses lasers for reading and writing the data.
Why Fdd is dying
Using this 1.44Mb floppy disk drive was all the time bit unreliable. We can all recall the "Sector 0 Bad" error, and myriad whole of utilities supporting assorted salvage and advanced modifications like:
- One marking sectors bad (Ndd - Norton Disk doctor and its face scan (ultimately acquired by Symantec and is part of its Norton Utilities Toolset right now).
- someone else very popular utility was to create someone else zero sector if the actual one was gone bad.
So what is remaining in the way of death of this magnetic medium? Only time!
As of now few features still needs the magnetic floppy disk drive, like for booting for the first time, or for upgrading Bios of the motherboard etc. This is due to it's (Fdds) easy of programming at the lower level and more importantly for its inbuilt preserve in the Bios program. So as soon as the modern Bios start supporting the Usb drives (motherboards have now started to come with this support) the floppy days are numbered.
Current preserve of Usb Devices by the Motherboard/Bios
The current motherboards and Bios have started the preserve of Usb drive as boot device. Meaning you can have your whole operating principles on this device, or simply use it as the bootable floppy (imaging carrying your whole work along with the programs and applications on a small keychain). Depending on the mode of usage resources are ready on the Internet for configuring your Usb drive. Please checkout the links in case,granted below where it provides tips and tricks of doing so.
Speaking of easy of use of using this feature, the qoute lies with the (Windows) Os right now that does not preserve manufacture the Usb drive bootable. It does allow you to format the Usb drive and pick the file principles format, but Make Booteble choice is not gift at all. Never mind as there are lot of tools and utilities ready (for all popular Os) that supports manufacture it bootable, though you will have to struggle a bit.
Future
As you see there is very little need of Floppy Disks for any use/operation and is getting substituted fast by the Usb drives. Already major computer vendors have made Fdd as elective feature. Now the time has come of the Usb flash drive over the demise of the Fdd.
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