I believe optical storage device is the way to go for safely storing data, CD-R or CD-RW for example, instead of magnetic devices, such as Zip disks and such. To some extent, Apple has driven users towards this by getting rid of magnetic data storage devices and implementing various optical storage drives from DVD-RAM, CD-R and CD-RW and now DVD-R.
But magnetic data storage device still has some advantage, speed and convenience for example. With Zip drive for example, you can drag and drop files or erase and rewrite quite easily, unlike CD-R or CD-RW. There are softwares that emulate that kind of functionality with CD drives, but they aren't quite the same. I heard about Mt. Rainier and how it is supposed to allow similar functionality in CD-RW drives but I don't see them being used much in work places.
Although I have not seen it in practice, I read articles that DVD+RW offers that functionality and if it does so, I would really like to see Apple utilize this format. One curious thing is that I read recent iMacs shipped with optical drive that is matter of fact DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R and DVD-RW compatible, yet it is limited only to DVD-R functionality. I wonder what is holding them back if DVD+RW provides such convenience as far as data storage is concerned, ability to drag and drop, using it like old floppy drive.
Another interesting news that caught my attention is Sony's new handheld game device that is suppose arrive next year. It is not necessarily the game device that fascinated me, but the fact that it will use something called Universal MiniDisc, a MiniDisc that holds 1.8GB of data. I'm pretty certain that this is latest development in Magneto Optical drive. For those who aren't familiar, it is combination of Magnetic data writing method and optical device. Some what well known device was made by Fujitsu, it resembled 3.5 floppy disk with optical disc inside. I personally used to own Magneto Optical drive which used 3.5 disk that held 640MB of data. It was extremely useful and convenient, it was just like using a floppy and ability to securely hold data was unmatched. But going back to the issue of new MiniDisc that holds 1.8GB of data, years ago they had old MiniDisc for data storage which held little bit over 100MB of data but was extremely slow. It never caught on in the market. But if this new MiniDisc becomes reality, I think they could really push this media as data storage device and Apple could certainly look into this as well. And considering Sony's handheld game device is suppose to have USB 2.0, I'm guessing the performance with this MiniDisc is not bad as well.
But I also wonder how future of Flash Memory devices will be like. Even though they are convenient in terms of size, they still remain expensive, hold little data, and also very expensive. Perhaps Flash Memory device has much long way to go?
But magnetic data storage device still has some advantage, speed and convenience for example. With Zip drive for example, you can drag and drop files or erase and rewrite quite easily, unlike CD-R or CD-RW. There are softwares that emulate that kind of functionality with CD drives, but they aren't quite the same. I heard about Mt. Rainier and how it is supposed to allow similar functionality in CD-RW drives but I don't see them being used much in work places.
Although I have not seen it in practice, I read articles that DVD+RW offers that functionality and if it does so, I would really like to see Apple utilize this format. One curious thing is that I read recent iMacs shipped with optical drive that is matter of fact DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R and DVD-RW compatible, yet it is limited only to DVD-R functionality. I wonder what is holding them back if DVD+RW provides such convenience as far as data storage is concerned, ability to drag and drop, using it like old floppy drive.
Another interesting news that caught my attention is Sony's new handheld game device that is suppose arrive next year. It is not necessarily the game device that fascinated me, but the fact that it will use something called Universal MiniDisc, a MiniDisc that holds 1.8GB of data. I'm pretty certain that this is latest development in Magneto Optical drive. For those who aren't familiar, it is combination of Magnetic data writing method and optical device. Some what well known device was made by Fujitsu, it resembled 3.5 floppy disk with optical disc inside. I personally used to own Magneto Optical drive which used 3.5 disk that held 640MB of data. It was extremely useful and convenient, it was just like using a floppy and ability to securely hold data was unmatched. But going back to the issue of new MiniDisc that holds 1.8GB of data, years ago they had old MiniDisc for data storage which held little bit over 100MB of data but was extremely slow. It never caught on in the market. But if this new MiniDisc becomes reality, I think they could really push this media as data storage device and Apple could certainly look into this as well. And considering Sony's handheld game device is suppose to have USB 2.0, I'm guessing the performance with this MiniDisc is not bad as well.
But I also wonder how future of Flash Memory devices will be like. Even though they are convenient in terms of size, they still remain expensive, hold little data, and also very expensive. Perhaps Flash Memory device has much long way to go?
