 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Data Storage
Data is any document, photograph or game progress that you save onto your computer. The contents of 'My Documents', 'My Photos' etc. is data and is stored on your computer's hard-drive in a special folder. This is a dangerous place to save data if it is the only place you keep it! Imagine if your hard-drive became damaged, where is all your data? That's right, on the damaged drive. Sometimes it cannot be retrieved - disaster!
Every now and then (say, once a month), you should back up your data on another source. This can be a CD or DVD, an external hard-drive, or a 'memory stick' (or portable data storage, to be exact). Long gone are the days of backing up on floppy discs, they are just about redundant these days, principally because they only held a fraction of your data - 1.44Mb. In fact, many new computers don't even have a floppy drive fitted anymore.
Portable Data Storage / Flash Drive / Memory Stick
 |
The most popular temporary data storage method is the Portable Data Storage, or flash drive or memory stick. An example of one is on the left. The capacity of the PDS varies from 512Mb to 16Gb - huge when you bear in mind that when I first got into computers, 4Gb was an above-average hard-drive size!
All you have to do is buy the PDS from any good outlet, plug it into your computer's USB port and after a few seconds you are ready to start transferring data. Think of the PDS as a simple and quick way of copying documents or photos from one place to the other (like college to home PC and back again). Take a look at the contents of 'My Computer' (XP) or 'Computer' (Windows Vista & 7), and the PDS will be visible as a drive, just like your hard-drive. Drag and drop documents to it, or simply 'save as...' with the target being the PDS. Another way is to highlight the documents you want to save, right-click and click 'copy', open up the PDS folder and click 'paste', your documents will fly across while the originals stay on your hard-drive. |
A word of warning - PDS's are improving all the time, but I wouldn't trust my data back-up to one for any great length of time. Use CD's or DVD's, or even better, a portable hard-drive. More about that later.
CD's & DVD's
 |
The second way of storing data is on a CD or DVD. Windows XP comes with its own burning software, so backing up your data is easy and straightforward with the 'wizard' that guides you through the procedure. Once the data has been backed up, store them somewhere safely!
You don't have to use Windows to burn discs, there are many pieces of software out there which will do the job, sometimes a lot better, many are free to download. Perhaps the most famous is 'Nero, everyone has heard of it, some love it, some hate it. So what's the difference between using a CD and a DVD? Storage capacity is the main difference. A DVD can hold up to 4.7Gb of data on one disc, while a CD can hold up to 700Mb of data. Remember - a floppy disc could hold only 1.44Mb of data! For more information about how to burn data to a CD or DVD, please click here. |
External Hard-Drives
 |
Portable external hard-drives are coming down n price all the time. They used to be a luxury item for a few, now they are becoming more popular as the price drops.
So what is an external hard-drive. Well, basically it is a computer hard-drive with nothing on the drive. It is totally blank - except for a bit of software on some of them for manual and automatic data back-up. Some like the Western Digital brand has this software pre-installed and you can run incremental back-ups of your data at the touch of a button! Apart from that, it is, as I said, a computer hard-drive (of varying sizes from 40- 250+Gb), in a rather nice plastic case, a mains lead and a USB cable. All you have to do is plug it in to the USB port and your computer sees it as another drive. You can store anything you want on it, take it to another computer, plug it in and hey presto!, you can access all your documents again. |
The only disadvantage to this unit is it needs the mains electricity to run it. I would not recommend the USB powered portable hard-drives as they are a bit slow, not very big (around the 4Gb size) and a bit fragile.
Internal Hard-Drives
  |
If you never seen your computer's hard-drive, and you would like to know what it looks like, have a look at the pictures on the left. This is how many of them look.
The one on the far left-hand side is displaying the glass or aluminium discs where all the data is inscribed onto. This forms a permanent record of all the computer's activities from the day it was first switched on. I say permanently on purpose, although you think you can destroy data on a hard-drive by using the add/remove programmes facility in Windows, the recycle bin etc, all you are really doing is re-naming it and storing it in a different place on the drive. That's why it is very important to note that if you sell your computer, you make sure you (a) have all the data removed by professional software, or (b) destroy the hard-drive with a hammer! It's the only way to be sure all your secrets are kept secret! Internal hard-drives vary enormously in size (capacity). Nowadays a computer with less than 80Gb isn't worth a light (except laptops), you should be looking at at least 120Gb, if not more. Many people are using computers to store videos, pictures etc, which all take up a lot of room, so bear this in mind when you next buy a new PC. |