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CD ROM
Able to hold 550 megabytes of pre-recorded data, CD-ROMs grow out of music Compact Disks (CDs). The CD was developed by Sony and Philips in 1982 for distributing music. The first general-interest CD-ROM product released after Philips and Sony announced the CD-ROM format in 1984 was Grolier´s Electronic Encyclopedia, which came out in 1985. The 9 million words in the encyclopedia only took up 12 percent of the available space. -
SSD
A prototype solid state disk (SSD) module is made for evaluation by IBM. SanDisk, which at time was known as SunDisk, manufactured the module which used non-volatile memory chips to replace the spinning disks of a hard disk drive. SanDisk recognized that handheld devices and computers were becoming lighter and smaller, and that flash memory, as was used in the SSD module, offered powerful advantages over hard disks. -
Compact Flash
When CompactFlash is introduced by SanDisk, it is quickly adopted and becomes the preferred memory storage option in many consumer as well as professional electronic devices. It was highly popular in digital still and video cameras, and although its dimensions were slightly larger than some other memory card formats, its ruggedness and high capacity made it a preferred choice. Although most CompactFlash units used flash memory, some actually relied on a hard disk. -
Digital -Video Disc
The Digital Video Disc (DVD) format is introduced, and its storage capacity is a huge increase over the common compact disc (CD). Two groups, made up mainly of Japanese technology companies, had been developing competing, optical disc storage formats. In order to avoid a format war akin to the VHS versus Betamax clash of the 1980s, IBM initiated a working group of technology experts that brokered the competition. After compromises from both sides, the DVD format was formalized. -
Compact Disc-ReWritable (CD-RW)
he Compact Disc-ReWritable (CD-RW) is introduced. This optical disc was used for data storage and in the backing up and transferring of files to various devices. It was less robust than some contemporary storage media, and could only be re-written roughly 1,000 times. However, this factor seldom encumbered users who rarely overwrote data that often on one disc. CD-RWs that were created on CD-RW drives were often unable to be read on CD-ROM drives. DVDs overtook much the market share from CD-RWs. -
USB Flash drive
USB Flash drives are introduced. Sometimes referred to as jump drives or memory sticks, these drives consisted of flash memory encased in a small form factor container with a USB interface. They could be used for data storage and in the backing up and transferring of files between various devices. They were faster and had greater data capacity than earlier storage media. Also, they could not be scratched like optical discs and were resilient to magnetic erasure, unlike floppy disks.
