The Essential Guide to Computer Data Storage: From Floppy to DVD - Softcover

Khurshudov, Andrei

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0130927392 ISBN 13: 9780130927392

Publisher: Prentice Hall Ptr, 2001

Synopsis

Explores recent innovations in information and data storage technology.

About this title

About the Author

DR. ANDREI KHURSHUDOV is a currently working at the Storage Technology Division of IBM Corporation in San Jose, California. His responsibilities include research and development of technologies for IBM's next generation hard disk drives. Before joining IBM, Khurshudov was a researcher at the Center for Magnetic Recording Research, UC San Diego, and at Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan. He holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, and served for eight years with the Mechanical Engineering Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Science. He runs the popular data storage website usbyte.

From the Back Cover

• The complete decision-maker's guide to choosing—and using—the right data storage technologies
• Personal and small business storage: hard drives, DVD, CD, Zip, Jaz, and more
• Enterprise storage: SAN, NAS, Fibre Channel, RAID, and beyond
• New Web-based storage alternatives
• Start-to-finish backup and disaster recovery tips

Choosing reliable, cost-effective data storage solutions—and making the most of them!

Whether you're an IT professional, enterprise manager, small business owner, or home PC user, you've got more data than ever—and choosing reliable, cost-effective storage has never been more important. Now, a leading data storage expert explains all your options, and shows you exactly how to make the most of them. Dr. Andrei Khurshudov reviews the capabilities, advantages, and underlying technologies associated with every current storage alternative, offering expert tips for buying, interfacing, scalability, recovery, and much more.

• Data storage interfaces: UDMA, USB, IEEE 1394 "FireWire," SCSI, FC-AL, and Serial Storage Architecture
• In-depth coverage of magnetic media: hard disks, tapes, and removables
• Up-to-date comparisons of removable storage: Superdisk, HiFD, Zip, Jaz, Orb, external hard disk drives, and more
• Tape alternatives: DAT, Travan, Mammoth, AIT, DLT, LTO, and beyond
• Optical storage: CD-RW, CD-R, and today's competing DVD formats
• Other storage solutions: Magneto-optical, Flash memory, and solid-state disk drives
• Enterprise storage strategies: storage area networks (SAN), network attached storage (NAS), RAID, and more
• Storage for digital cameras, PDAs, MP3 players, Personal Video Recorders, and other next-generation devices
• Storage on the Web: alternatives, limitations, and case studies
• Preventing data loss-and what to do if the disaster has already happened

If you're planning for business growth and disaster recovery, or simply want the best storage "bang for the buck," The Essential Guide to Computer Data Storage delivers objective guidance—and realistic solutions.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Preface

A world without data storage is like a mankind without memory. Thanks to various information storage methods developed in the last 22,000 years, we are able to document our history, to learn from each other's experience, and, ultimately, to create the world as it is today.

The future of computing is dependent on how well the enormous amount of generated information will be managed. But which technology will be used in the future to store new knowledge and experiences? Will we use holographic storage? Or store data by moving single atoms? Or will data be stored via the Internet on huge storage servers 10,000 miles away from your home? Or will the more traditional magnetic and optical recording technologies survive for the next 10 to 50 years? It is hard to guess. The amount of data we have generated so far is small compared to what is coming tomorrow.

The purpose of this book is to provide a practical guide and an easy reference for the majority of computer users and technical professionals. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced PC user, you will find here some useful information on computer storage systems design, selection, and technology.

The focus of this book is on the various types of computer storage devices: hard disk drive, DVD, CD, removable media storage systems (such as Zip, Jaz, etc.), RAID, and others. The book also discusses interfacing storage with a computer via IDE, SCSI, USB, FireWire, and other interface protocols. A possible future of the Web storage will also be addressed as an alternative storage technology.

Special chapters will discuss selection of storage systems for your computer and will deal with accidental data loss. An extensive glossary of PC data storage terms will complete the book. At the very end, references for further learning and a deeper understanding of the discussed subjects will be provided.

This book is not intended to be a "nuts-and-bolts" textbook. Also, by no means can it be a complete guide to a subject that is evolving continuously. Even now, as I write these words, new ideas are being born, new technologies are being invented, new companies are being started to surprise others with the newest, hottest storage product.

Instead, this book tries to serve as an essential guide to the computer storage technology of today, and even sometimes makes a short-term prediction of the future.

The main reason for not making long-term predictions? Well, they are hardly ever right. Examples? Find below three particular favorites of mine and let's then proceed to the first chapter.Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 11U2 tons.—Popular Mechanics, March 1949 There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.—Ken Olson,
President, Chairman, and Founder
Digital Equipment Corp., 1977I think there's a world market for about five computers.—Thomas Watson
Founder
IBM, 1943

Edition details

• Publisher: Prentice Hall Ptr
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0130927392
• ISBN 13: 9780130927392
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384