Carry data in your pocket with sturdy pen drives

In 1890, Herman Hollerith used punch card to record and read data from a computer this helped him completing the census in just 1 year which took 8 years for 1880 census. Since that time storage devices have changed a lot, storage devices are made compact  and more efficient. After punch card there have been many technologies gradually taking over one another in next 100 years 3 generations saw different storage technologies and devices in form of Tube storage and Drum memory in 1950s, Cassette tapes capable of storing 660Kb per side, gradually Floppy disks overtook Cassettes for data storage but still our generation has nostalgic memories as they were being used to record and store music, till early 2000s Magnetic cassette Tapes ruled the music industry.

 

Cassette Tapes

It was Optical Disks i.e. CD ROMs and DVDs which largely replaced Cassettes thanks to its larger storage capacity and compact design. It was year 2000 when IBM brought revolution in way we store and transfer our data by introducing DiskOnKey, this was first step towards flash storage which killed floppy disks and Optical disks for day to day usage. This was the first commercially available pen drive which we know today. Flash drives or Pen Drive works on NAND or NOR gate type implementation, these storage devices are non- volatile, easy to write in small chunks without need of deleting any existing data to write on unused memory area.

It’s been 15 years and we are still using Pen Drives for carrying and transfer of data of all sorts be it office documents, music, movies, complex projects, operating systems etc. and we have enough reasons to continue to do so. Be it its compact design, ease of connectivity as it uses the universal USB slot to connect. Now a days fashion enthusiasts can get these pen drives in real cool design, one can buy a Pen drive that can fit as a wrist band or it can have as cool design as your guitar. 

Nothing is permanent in tech world and everything can become obsolete with introduction of a new product offering better solution in any terms, same is the case with pendrives now a days pendrives are most common storage devices but who knows when technology like Cloud storage reaches the masses what will be usability of these cute little devices which has served us for so many years, till that day comes collect your favorite pen drive and use it in the way you want.