Older Data Storage Media

There was a time when the ubiquitous floppies ruled the world of data storage media. They were eventually overtaken by the tape drives. These tape drives also had their moment in the spotlight but were replaced by compact disks.

The compact disks then, seemed to be the final answer but soon enough, digital versatile disks overtook them as the popular data storage media of the day.

Even as external hard disk drives held on as masters of their very own niche segment in the market.

Arrival of the Universal Serial Bus Flash Drives

The superiority of the digital versatile disks is now under threat. These and the other technologies, including the hard disk drive itself, are being challenged by the universal serial bus flash drives for a dominating role in the market.

Even as the universal serial bus flash drive technology which is being touted as the data storage technology of the future, newer technologies are under consideration in laboratories across the world.

Latest Entrants in the Field of Data Storage Media

Thus, it is very difficult to predict which technology will ultimately hold sway in the given arena. In all probability all of them will continue to be in use for a long time to come and it is unlikely that any one technology will totally supersede the others.

Nevertheless it will be interesting to take a note of the still newer technologies being developed in the laboratories. Most probably any one of the given three data storage technologies, holographic memory, molecular memory or the MRAM technology, is going to take over flash in the not too distant future.

Holographic Memory

Holographic memory is one of the latest entrants into the world of data storage media. In this technology photorefractive materials are used. The data is captured by the use of laser beams which shine on the surface of the photorefractive material.

When two different light beams from a single laser source are split then the creation of a hologram is made possible. One of the two beams is a signal beam while the other beam of light is the reference beam of the system.

The interference of these two beams of light with each other results into an interference pattern. This interference pattern encompasses both the phase information as well as the amplitude of the two light beams.

Placement of the right kind of photorefractive material at the interference point records the interference patterns within the photorefractive material. The illumination of the photorefractive material at a time when the signal beam is absent brings forward a hologram.

This hologram is the reason as to why light is diffracted from the photorefractive material. This diffracted beam of light is in the direction of the original signal beam and when it is diffracted, it reconstructs the entire information of the initial signal beam.

Molecular Memory

Most of the existing data storage media utilise inorganic materials, magnets or circuits to help them store the requisite data. However a new technology has been developed. This technology uses, for its data storage element, various molecular species.

In this technology the molecular component can be considered its molecular switch. It can perform its given function by using any one of the several mechanisms. One of the mechanisms used to perform this function is charge storage.

The other mechanisms are changes in capacitance and photochromism. If a molecular memory device is perfect then each and every single molecule will contain a bit of data. This gives it an unparalleled and massive storage capacity.

Most of the practical devices, however, have a large number of molecules for every bit of data. Molecular memory is generally representative of electronically addressed, very fast, solid state data storage media.

Magneto-resistive Random Access Memory

Magneto-resistive Random Access Memory is shortened to MRAM in everyday parlance. It is a type of computer memory which is non volatile in nature. It has been under development since the 1990s. However this technology has yet to gain a foothold in the market. At the moment it is still limited to usage in laboratories.