What is Storage and Types of Storage

 What is Storage

What is data storage going to do to improve your business operations? It's no secret that technology glitches can (and do) occur for both small businesses as well as international corporations. Protecting your users' and company's important files and historical archive of documents with storage solutions is a vital part of running a business; it will also help to ensure that your files can be recovered if a major loss does occur. Reliability, cost of the storage system and security offerings are the major considerations to keep in mind as you prepare to implement data storage, performance management and disaster recovery plans.

Types of Data Storage

• Hard Drives 
• Solid-State Drives (SSD) 
• CD/DVD Drives 
• Flash Drives

Hard Drives:

It is a storage device (HDD) that stores and retrieves data using magnetic storage. It is a non-volatile storage device that can be modified or deleted n number of times without any problem. Most of the computers and laptops have HDDs as their secondary storage device. It is actually a set of stacked disks, just like phonograph records. In every hard disk, the data is recorded electromagnetically in the concentric circles or we can say track present on the hard disk, and with the help of a head just like a phonograph arm(but fixed in a position) to read the information present on the track. The read-write speed of HDDs is not so fast but decent. It ranges from a few GBs to a few and more TB.

A hard disk drive (sometimes abbreviated as a hard drive, HD, or HDD) is a non-volatile data storage device. It is usually installed internally in a computer, attached directly to the disk controller of the computer's motherboard. It contains one or more platters, housed inside of an air-sealed casing. Data is written to the platters using a magnetic head, which moves rapidly over them as they spin. Internal hard disks reside in a drive bay, connected to the motherboard using an ATA, SCSI, or SATA cable. They are powered by a connection to the computer's PSU (power supply unit).

Solid-State Drives (SSD):

An SSD, or solid-state drive, is a type of storage device used in computers. This non-volatile storage media stores persistent data on solid-state flash memory. SSDs replace traditional hard disk drives (HDDs) in computers and perform the same basic functions as a hard drive. But SSDs are significantly faster in comparison. With an SSD, the device's operating system will boot up more rapidly, programs will load quicker and files can be saved faster. A traditional hard drive consists of a spinning disk with a read/write head on a mechanical arm called an actuator. An HDD reads and writes data magnetically. The magnetic properties, however, can lead to mechanical breakdowns. By comparison, an SSD has no moving parts to break or spin up or down. The two key components in an SSD are the flash controller and NAND flash memory chips. This configuration is optimized.

It stands for Solid State Drive, a mass storage device like HDDs. It is more durable because it does not contain optical disks inside like hard disks. It needs less power as compared to hard disks, is lightweight, and has 10x faster read and write speed as compared to hard disks. But, these are costly as well. While SSDs serve an equivalent function as hard drives, their internal components are much different. Unlike hard drives, SSDs don’t have any moving parts and thus they’re called solid-state drives. Instead of storing data on magnetic platters, SSDs store data using non-volatile storage. Since SSDs haven’t any moving parts, they do not need to “spin up”. It ranges from 150GB to a few and more TB.

CD/DVD Drives:

It is known as Compact Disc. It contains tracks and sectors on its surface to store data. It is made up of polycarbonate plastic and is circular in shape. CD can store data up to 700MB.

Digital Versatile Disc. DVDs are circular flat optical discs used to store data. It comes in two different sizes one is 4.7GB single-layer discs and another one is 8.5GB double-layer discs. DVDs look like CDs but the storage capacity of DVDs is more than as compared to CDs

Flash Drives

A flash drive is a small, ultra-portable storage device which, unlike an optical drive or a traditional hard drive, has no moving parts. Flash drives connect to computers and other devices via a built-in USB Type-A or USB-C plug, making one a kind of combination USB device and cable. Flash drives are often referred to as pen drives, thumb drives, or jump drives

On most computers, you'll be alerted that the flash drive was inserted and the contents of the drive will appear on the screen, similar to how other drives on your computer appear when you browse for files. You can also use a flash drive with an Android phone or connect one to an iPhone or iPad. Exactly what happens when you use your flash drive depends on your version of Windows or other operating system, and how you have your computer configured.