“Thinnovation”, an advertisement campaign recently created by the Apple Computer, has overthrown the idea of “the bigger the better”. The campaign has proven to the world that even though technological devices can become smaller without sacrificing function or performance. Although Apple has caused a stir recently, this trend of development can be seen across a wide variety of devices such as radios, cell phones, and even TVs. The evolution of computer storage devices is another example of this trend in technological evolution.
Portability and convenience were finally addressed with the introduction of the Floppy Disk. A Floppy Disk was convenient, but its memory capacity was limited. Appearing in the early 1970’s, initially these disks were quite large physically ( 8 inch x 8 inches ) and had a small data capacity ( 100 kilobytes ) (Floppy Primer 1996). Over the years the size of the floppy disk shrank to their smallest viable size of 3. 5 inches. At this point the floppy had reached a data capacity of 100MB.
. To give a clearer picture, 100MB of memory is almost 2 hours worth of music.This capacity, however, wasn’t enough for the business world, when multi-media PowerPoint presentations began to exceed this limit. By 1994, Iomega, the company that gave birth to the first “Zip Disk”( resembling a floppy, this disk was actually a cartridge --- marrying the innovations of floppy technology with the greater data density of hard disks). This device defined portability for many computer users since it can store up to 250MB of information.
The Zip Disk was later quickly abandoned in favor of a new, cheaper technology, the compact disk.The first writable CD-ROM (Compact Disk – Read only Memory) was introduced to the public during 1991; by 1996 the writable CD-ROM had become a popular option for storing information. That same year, DVD (Digital Video Disk) was introduced which allowed more memory capacity but at a much higher cost when compared to a CD-ROM However, a computer that was able to “write” (record) to a CD-ROM or DVD was still relatively expensive. By 2000, most computers were able to record data onto either a CD-ROM or a DVD. Although both these formats have relatively high data capacities, most could only be written to once.
Thus CD and DVD provide portability and high data capacity they only partially satisfy the need for convenient usability. To satisfy consumer needs for both high density memory and convenient use, flash memory cards were launched in late 1997. However, these memory cards were initially used mostly in cameras or phones. Using them to exchange data was difficult because so many different formats exist. However, a new device protocol (USB) increased the popularity of flash devices by making it easy to attach and remove flash disk reader devices on almost any computer.Finally a little after the millennium, the USB Flash Drive was first introduced to the world and has brought convenience to users ever since.
This device marries flash technology and a USB I/O device to create one integrated storage device. Disk technology also made this leap and offer larger data capacity, but at a much higher cost than a flash device. Initially, USB flash drives had only a16MB capacity, but now are available with over 8GB. Users can now carry an entire database in a device that is as small as a fingertip.Looking at its predecessors, the USB flash drive solves many problems such as durability, compactness, convenience, and memory capacity.
The USB Flash Drive is widely used across all industries. The technology has served as a communication bridge and helps people to store tremendous amount of personal and business related data. For example, flash drives help business and society to connect to the world, it helps students and teachers to store and deliver large presentations such as a lecture.The USB Flash Drive was born in 2000, and is now eight years old. Still, manufacturers continue to develop newer designs that have a larger memory capacity and continue to keep its cost low compared to its rivals.
Nowadays, people no longer have to save their project presentations into a stack of floppy disks, they can store all their documents on just one USB flash drive. The USB flash drive has brought convenience to the world without anyone realizing how revolutionary its effect was.
