A Place for Everything

Data-storage pioneers continue to push technology to the limits.

By Edmund X. DeJesus

Data storage is the most exciting technology on the planet--and the dullest. Face it: Most users could not care less about the type of storage their computer uses, as long as they can get their programs and information when they want them--fast. Yet, the technology users most want to ignore is constantly pushing the bounds of the possible.

Pundits have long been predicting the demise of those slow electromechanical dinosaurs-to-be--hard drives. But hard drives continue rocketing to faster speed, higher capacity, better reliability, and--astonishingly--lower prices. Designers are ransacking diverse regions of science and technology. To perform their magic, today's hard drives depend on mind-bending combinations of aerodynamics, signal-processing algorithms, and quantum mechanics.

Also magical is the notion that silicon chips can store data indefinitely, without electrical power. Yet, that is exactly what solid-state storage using flash memory does. This technology remains too pricey to dethrone hard drives in the desktop-storage realm, but it continues to boost storage density and lower prices. As flash memory keeps conquering more noncomputer fields, such as digital cameras and answering machines, this challenger may someday take the desktop throne, too.

Another surprise you may find on your desktop: CD-ROM recording equipment. There was a time when recording your own CDs seemed about as practical as recording your own record albums. Yet, today, under-$1000 CD Recordable (CD-R) units can record--and read--CDs in the same-size bay as an ordinary CD-ROM drive. Many organizations, such as NASA, are seizing on CD-R as the answer to an archivist's praye r: cheap, easy--and bulletproof--long-term storage.

All these advances in storage may radically alter the future of "everyday" computing. Larger and faster hard drives already support RAID storage and will permit ever-larger database operations--without bothering the network unduly. Some users even "mirror" slower CDs on their hard drive for faster access. Flash memory could quietly back up your live work environment, reducing any problems should the system crash.

So, just what's going on with storage? More, faster, easier, cheaper. Sounds pretty exciting.