Computer Storage Devices

External hard drives – like embedded hard drives – store data on rapidly rotating magnetic disks. They’re typically housed in a protective plastic case and receive power through an A/C connection. They connect to a computer either by a USB or Firewire (IEEE1394) cable.

Backing up your computer to an external hard drive is something we can’t recommend enough. While it’s rare that a hard drive on a computer will fail completely and fry all your documents and digital memories, it does happen and you should be prepared. Regularly backing up your hard drive is even more critical if you have a laptop since there is always a chance it will get stolen or damaged in transit.

These tiny portable devices (they’re known by several different names) uses a USB (universal serial bus) interface for easy access to other electronic devices such as computers. Because they’re small enough to fit into a pocket, they’re great for quickly connecting to your computer via its USB port, transferring over data such as documents, photos, or program, and then ejecting and bringing with you. Since portable USB drives use flash memory they don’t need to be powered by an electrical source to maintain content storage and can be erased and rewritten again and again.

These tiny portable devices (they’re known by several different names) uses a USB (universal serial bus) interface for easy access to other electronic devices such as computers. Because they’re small enough to fit into a pocket, they’re great for quickly connecting to your computer via its USB port, transferring over data such as documents, photos, or program, and then ejecting and bringing with you. Since portable USB drives use flash memory they don’t need to be powered by an electrical source to maintain content storage and can be erased and rewritten again and again.

Burning data onto CDs and DVDs is another way to back up your files though it’s not as popular as it once was because of the increasing affordability of external and portable hard drives. A burner user a laser to burn data into a blank CD or DVD, cutting a series of microscopic pits into the disk’s polycarbonate plastic, which correspond to the 1s and 0s of the digital video signal.

Literally RAID stands for “Redundant Array of Independent Disks.” What a RAID array does is link together several hard drives to provide greater storage, increase overall performance and, most importantly, provides a higher level of protection from data loss if there’s a malfunction.

Most regular consumers don’t need to know if a particular hard drive they’re buying is “RAID capable” but for someone, such as a professional photographer, who does serious archiving of digital images, being able to create a RAID array from several hard drives is essential.