Bill Gates had famously stated in the 1980s that 640Kb of memory should be enough for most users. For long the humble floppy disk (with a memory of 1.2 Mb) was the most common source of external data storage. The DOS kernel comes in a single floppy, and so does, till this day - the system recovery floppy. The first Windows shipped in floppies rather than in CDs, as CD technology was not very common. Times, however, have changed.

The computer revolution has generated a humongous amount of data. This is due to many reasons. Computers have given rise to many new disciplines, which necessitate their own literature and data. It has enabled digitization wherein older forms of analog data are being converted to digital data. It has devised newer forms of media which necessitate digital recording. For example, the advent of the digital camera requires us to store huge digital files in the computer and other devices. With time the mega pixel capacity increases, and so does individual file sizes and cumulative files sizes.

Better and better quality of other media like VCD, DVD and BlueRay have come up one after another, each of which store an increasing amount of data, resulting in larger file sizes. All this is stored in storage media of various sorts. Storage media usually refers to permanent (non-volatile) storage, that is, the data will remain stored even when power is removed from the device; unlike semiconductor RAM. Recording can be done mechanically, magnetically, or optically. Today, different storage options are available, like flash memory, magnetic bubble memory, disk storage (CD, DVD, BlueRay), hard disk memory, holographic memory, floppy disk, ZIP disk, magnetic tape and paper tape, etc. Equally, data management becomes of great importance when there is a lot of data to be managed. Backup of data is a sensible management practice. Data recovery is crucial when there is an inadvertent data loss.

In this section of the directory, we provide links to many data recovery and management services, to various storage options and other resources.

 Related Resources