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Punch Card
Punch cards were originally used for calculating machines. They were later standardized as the IBM 80-Column Punching Format. An alternate name was IBM Cards. They were used to store information. -
Punched Tape
Punched Tape is a long strip of paper to store data. They were originally used for instructions for machines at an embroidery factory. -
Magnetic Tape
Magnetic Tape was based on Magnetic Wire. It was originally used with a machine called AEG Magnetophon. It was a 1/2 inch wide nickle-plated bronze tape. It had a data rate of 12,800 characters per second. It was usually used to record audio, such as the London Philharmonic orchestra conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham. They were available in different lengths, usually around 2,400 feet, or 4,800 feet. -
Magnetic Drum
A Magnetic Drum was a drum that had a ferromagnetic layer on the outside. There were read and write heads mounted micrometers apart from each other. It would store information as pulses, the pulses would count as either a zero or a one. It was 500,000 bits. -
Hard Disk
Hard Disks came standard withe the IBM 350. It had a 50 25 inch platters and had the capacity of 5,000,000 characters. It rotated at the speed of 1,200 RPM. Its base storage was 5 megabytes. -
Music Tape
Music tapes were made to store audio and was created by Philips. They originally played as mono audio. They were used on many computers such as the TRS-80, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, BBC Micro, etc. -
Floppy Disks
Floppy Disks were originally used for System/370 mainframes. They were originally 8 inches and held 80 kilobytes. It was later upgraded to 5 1/4 inches and held 110 kilobytes. Finally, it was upgraded to 3 1/2 inches and held 360 kilobytes on a single-sided and 720 kilobytes on a double-sided. -
Compact Disc (CD)
The CD was originally meant to store audio and was used with the Sony CDP-101. It was created by Sony and Phillips. The sampling rate was 44.1 kHz. There was a standard size at 120 millimeters, and a business-card form at 80 millimeters. The standard size could originally only hold 74 minutes of audio, but they were later updated to hold 80 to 90 minutes of audio. The business-card form could hold only 20 minutes. -
CompactFlash (CF)
CompactFlash operated around 3.3 volts or 5 volts. They were able to operate in temperatures between -45 degrees celcius and 85 degrees celcius. They were usually used with handheld computers, laptops, digital cameras, and desktop computers. -
Zip
The zip drive and disk was created by Iomega. It was very similar to a 3 1/2 floppy disk. It had a data transfer rate of 1 megabyte per second, and held 100 megabytes of data. -
DVD
The DVD was very similar to a CD. It was able to hold many types of data, such as cinema-like video, images, and computer data. -
Multimedia Card (MMC)
Multimedia Cards were created by Siemens and SanDisk. It was the size of a postage stamp, or 24 millimeters by 32 millimeters by 1 1/2 millimeters. It originally transferred data at the speed of 1 bit, but was later upgraded to 4 and even 8 bits. They were used for portable devices. They are able to store up to 2 gigabytes of storage. -
USB Flash Drive
USB Drives went by many names such as pen drives, thumb drives, USB sticks, etc. They are only active when it is given power through the drive. -
Secure Digital Card (SD Card)
SD Cards is 32 millimeters by 24 millimeters by 2.1 millimeters. They are available in sizes up to 2 gigabytes. -
Blu-Ray Disc
Blu-Ray Discs were created for high-definition video. It gets its name from its 405 nm blue laser. They can hold up to 50 gigabytes of data.
