For Storage on the Go...

A marketing manager of a logistics company was invited by a leading industry
body to talk about emerging trends in logistics management. He prepared a Power
Point presentation, and copied it onto a floppy disk. To his horror when the
floppy was inserted in a PC wired to an OHP in the venue, it said, ‘corrupt
disk’. With no backup of the presentation at his disposal, the embarrassed
executive apologized and spoke about general trends in the field. Instances such
as these reinforce the need for reliable, removable storage medias. Floppy disks
once considered a boon have now become an unreliable backup option. Moreover,
even when compressed, it can store only up to 1.7MB of data. Floppy disks hence
have become irrelevant because today’s data intensive applications demand
higher removable storage capacities. What users today need is a higher capacity,
reliable removable mass storage technology to transport and backup data. However
when looking at an alternative for floppy disks, three technologies lead the
pack–Zip, CDR and Tape Drive.

Zipping
ahead

According to IDC, "Zip technology occupies 87% of the low end magnetic
market which consists of high capacity flexible removable cartridge drives. The
zip drives which comes in various capacities–100MB to 750MB are seen as an
ideal solution for mobile professionals. One of the biggest advantages of Zip
drive is that they are very easy to use, since it is built on the USB standard.
Also with the commercialization of USB 2.0 by many PC vendors, the data
throughput speeds have reached new heights. Given this, Zip drives offer immense
value in terms of plug and play, portability, and usage. A CooperComm report on
Zip usage says that a majority of the Fortune 1000 companies use Zip drives
mainly because they are satisfied with its ease of use and installation.

Optical media

Competing with Zip drives are CDR and CDRWs. This technology has an edge
when it comes to cost. Both CDR and CDRW discs provide over 600MB of storage at
a very low media cost. Moreover CDR disks can be read by any CDROM drive. The
present trend indicates that the preferred removable media in the optical
storage market is the CDR disks. Despite it being a write-once media, the low
cost coupled with higher capacity makes it popular vis-à-vis CDRW disks. Market
reports say that 97% of the disks sold in the past two years are CDRs.

Tape Drive

While Zip and CDRs are aimed at the individual user, the tape drive
addresses the removable storage needs of the SME’s. With the HDD capacities
going up, the need for a larger capacity, removable storage has become a
necessity. For instance a tape drive allows the user to store the entire data
from the HDD to a single removable data cartridge that has as much as 20 GB in
capacity. Tape drive technology since its introduction in the 1980’s has
emerged into a major enterprise removable storage standard. Also the industry’s
leading OEM’s have adopted this as a standard backup option for entry-level
servers.

Issues

Every removable option–individual and enterprise has its inherent issues.
For instance the Zip drives despite its unique features, suffers from perception
in terms of cost when compared to optical medias. Unlike CDs Zip comes
preformatted and data can be written faster due to its USB capability. Moreover
the optical disks due to their unprotected surface are prone to scratches and
data integrity becomes questionable. Given these issues–three scenarios
emerge:

Users, who want to backup their individual critical data like files,
presentation and word processing applications will favor the Zip drive. The
optical disk backup will be driven by the multimedia applications and by those
users searching for an immediate FDD alternate. Meanwhile, tape drives, despite
commanding higher upfront investment, will rule the SME space due to its very
high storage capacity. So with storage becoming a mission-critical issue we have
more than one option on which to place our bets.

Shrikanth G in Chennai