Manuel Mejia Jr
- 2002.02.18
On the last day of 1999, LEM published an article that described
various storage media for computer data. In the two years since
that article's publication, there have been some dramatic changes
in computer technology. These changes mandate an update to that
article.
800k floppy disks
The 800k (double-density) 3.5" floppy was the media of choice
for the original Mac Plus,
the early SE, and the Mac II computer system. Unfortunately, the
last supplier of these disks in North America, Radio Shack,
discontinued them as a regular store item in 2000. It is doubtful
that they are being manufactured anywhere. Fortunately for early
generation Mac users, these disk were made for a long time. Many
suppliers of old Macs, like those on the Used Mac Dealer's List, still carry a
supply of 800K floppies in inventory to go with their 800K floppy
Macs. A first- or second-generation Mac user should keep at least a
dozen 800K in storage for use for storing software backups and
operating system software. If you can find more disk, that is even
better. One can often find 800k floppies that were used to hold
DOS/Windows software. These disks can be reformatted for use in
Macs. It would also be advisable to get some sort of hard drive, be
it external or internal, to store the Mac OS and key programs.
1.4 Meg Floppy Disks
High density disks are still in production and in regular use by
computer users. They should remain available for another 7-10
years. As limited as they are in terms capacity, they are still the
method of choice when it comes to being rugged and portable. They
are inexpensive and over 90% of the planet's existing active
computer population still uses them. Other means of data storage
like Syquest, Zip, SuperDisk, and Jazz drives have appeared and
disappeared while the lowly 3.5" HD floppy remains in use.
Zip, Jazz, SuperDisk, and Syquest
These drives store much more data than a HD floppy. Zip and
SuperDisk cartridges could hold 96 megs of data, while Syquest
developed drives and cartridges that could hold anywhere from 44 MB
to 1.5 GB of data. For more information on Syquest, refer to
SyQuest Drives: Fast, Cheap Removable
Storage by Korin Hasegawa-John.
The reliability of these "removable hard drives" is their main
weakness. LEM reader Clarisse Liete Motter of AIMUG noted how
fragile the Syquest cartridges were. "I know, from personal
experience that it is a waste of hard-to-come cash to pay for a few
dozen for a [Syquest] drive, and a few dozen more bucks for
cartridges, both of which are so easily knocked off their
alignment. Worse yet, you do not EVEN FIND OUT about the problem
prior to the malfunctioning cartridge making your drive unusable
because the cartridge knocked off the drives Reading Laser
alignment just by the act of being put in and not mounting. Even
with the best of care, I have rendered 4 cartridges and 2 Syquest
drives useless." In order to protect the cartridges from damage,
Hasegawa-John noted that special Syquest-supplied cases had to be
used. Given these problems, it is not a surprise that Syquest went
under while the rugged 1.4 MB floppy survived.
If a Mac user chooses to use a removable, high capacity drive
for storage, use an Iomega Zip drive. The drives and the cartridges
seem to be more rugged than the Syquest counterpart. With the
proper software driver, one can even use the Iomega drive with a
Mac Plus.
CD-R and CD-RW
Although the CD burner has been around since the early 1990s, it
has been only in recent years that burners became inexpensive
enough for computer companies to make them standard equipment.
Unlike the magnetic floppy disks, CDs are long lasting in terms of
storing data without it degrading over time. They can practically
be classified as archival. A pack of CDs are almost the same price
as a box of HD floppies. In time, CD-RW will likely retire the HD
floppy to history in the manner the 3.5" floppy retired the 5.25"
floppy.
In terms of archiving files for very long periods of time
(decades), the personal computer age has yet to produce a medium
that can last that long. The methods of data storage keep changing.
The magnetic media type of storage (5.25" floppies, 3.5" floppies,
VCR tapes, etc.) degrade over time and data loss is inevitable.
This may have been one consideration that went into the infamous
1998 Byte magazine article on archiving data. The author
recommended printing out important documents and data on
paper and binding them into books. Paper was considered the
most cost effective medium for long term storage.
Companies with gigabytes and even terabytes worth of data go one
step further and photograph their paper printouts and put the data
onto microfiche film. Many libraries with newspaper and journal
collections have their documents on microfiche. The closest the
personal computer industry has come to developing such a durable
medium is the CD.
The Future
Although this is speculation on my part, there is one other
future medium that may even overtake the durable CD. This medium is
a form of Solid State Recorder (SSR). SSRs store information
directly to a silicon chip. NASA already uses SSRs on spacecraft,
such as the Cassini/Saturn probe. You can also find crude versions
of SSRs in use on telephone answering machines that do not use
magnetic tape. A consumer computer version would be probably be the
size of an 18mm by 70 mm "data rod." To get an idea of what such a
rod looks like, review a rerun of "Star trek: Deep Space 9." The
red/orange cylinders that are held by the crew are referred to as
"Cardassian Data Rods." There look very handy in terms of storing
data. It would be plausible to mimic one of these rods in real
life. They are hypothetically durable and archival.
Those of you who are taking family photos using digital cameras
or writing important documents should be prepared to store an
archive version of these record in paper form, on CD, or perhaps
even in data rods some day.
