Combo Drive aka Combination Drive

A Combo Drive is a type of optical drive that combines CD-R/CD-RW recording capability with the ability to read (but not write) DVD media. The term is used almost exclusively by Apple Inc. as a name for the low-end substitute for their high-end SuperDrive, which was designed to both read and write DVD and DVD recordable media. The device was created as a mid-range option between a CD burner and a DVD burner, which at the time the Combo drive was introduced was generally an expensive option costing in excess of US$300 a unit.

Combo drives are becoming less and less common on new systems, though they do occasionally appear in lieu of CD-only drives on low-end computers and business computers to lower production and sale costs. The cost difference between a Combo drive and DVD burner has been steadily declining in recent years, so most new PCs (except for the low-end budget computers) have a DVD burner (which also reads and writes CDs).

In current Apple computers, none contain Combo Drives. As of October 2008, the MacBook comes with a SuperDrive as standard, and as of March 2009, the Mac mini comes with a SuperDrive as opposed to the usual Combo Drive

Related Brands
Dell
IBM
HP Hewlett Packard
Compaq
Toshiba
Apple
Lenovo
Panasonic

Floppy Disk Drives are older removable storage devices.

Floppy Disk Drives aka Flexible Disk Drives are conceptually a more primitive version of the USB or (Universal Serial Bus) we use today.  The most common type of floppy disk drive is the 3.5 inch drive,  followed by 5.25 inch and then the 8 inch drive which was produced in the 1960’s to 1970’s. Although 8 inch drives are obsolete, some people still use these drives.  A 3.5 inch floppy disk is a thin-light weight diskette that can fit in a regular sized pocket.  The back end of a floppy disk drive has a port (i.e. connector) that connects the disk with the motherboard. It is best to purchase external floppy drives that are USB based so you can move them from system to system.

Today most people find it very convenient to use USB drives rather than floppy disk drives. Basically, USB drives are physically very small compared to floppy disk drives and its mass storage capacity ranges beyond or higher than 2Gb.

LTO Tape Drives - Terabytes on your desktop?

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With a dizzying array of formats for tape drives, it can be daunting for business or home users to decide on the right backup solution for his or her business. After you search on-line for tape drives, you may see esoteric names like AIT, Mammoth, VXA, Data8, 8mm, DDS, DAT, 4mm, SLR, QIC, Ditto, SAIT, Travan, Magstar, DLT, SDLT, ADR, TX-2, and therefore the list goes on! No wonder why it is thus so confusing for people to decide when considering information storage backup solutions.

One widespread format adopted by several corporations, is the LTO format or standard. LTO stands for Linear Tape Open. LTO technology utilizes a magnetic tape cartridge that is four inches square cartridge and has a thickness of half an inch thick. There are 3 firms that started the LTO Consortium: HP, IBM, and Certance (was Seagate and now is Quantum).

In the earlier days of tape storage throughout the mid Eighties, the DLT format was the de-facto half inch cartridge standard in the market. Then the LTO format was released in an effort to displace the present DLT format. The similarity of size and form factor of the new LTO half-inch cartridges makes it easier for users of robotic tape libraries to migrate from DLT to LTO libraries.

LTO Ultrium is often used for the name of this open format technology since every generation will increase its native storage capability. LTO-1 has 100GB, LTO-2 has 200GB, LTO-3 jumps up to 400GB, LTO-4 has 800GB, and LTO-5 has 1500GB (1.5 Terabytes). Do you know what a Terabyte is?

New options are being added with every generation. The new LTO-4 and LTO-5 have encryption capabilities so tape cartridges have the info on them safely locked from intrusion by using Advanced Encryption which is  called AES Encryption methodology 256 bit. Starting with LTO-5, the fifth generation, there's currently partitioning. By dividing up the LTFS (Linear Tape File System) into totally different partitions, this permits faster access times and additionally improved information management.

Future generations of LTO will keep increasing the storage capacity. One day, one cartridge can hold multiple TERABYTES of information.

Related LTO Brands
HP Hewlett Packard
IBM
Compaq
Dell
Quantum
Imation
Tandberg Data
Sun Microsystems

LTO Tape Drives – Terabytes on your desktop?

With a dizzying array of formats for tape drives, it can be daunting for business or home users to decide on the right backup solution for his or her business. After you search on-line for tape drives, you may see esoteric names like AIT, Mammoth, VXA, Data8, 8mm, DDS, DAT, 4mm, SLR, QIC, Ditto, SAIT, Travan, Magstar, DLT, SDLT, ADR, TX-2, and therefore the list goes on! No wonder why it is thus so confusing for people to decide when considering information storage backup solutions.

One widespread format adopted by several corporations, is the LTO format or standard. LTO stands for Linear Tape Open. LTO technology utilizes a magnetic tape cartridge that is four inches square cartridge and has a thickness of half an inch thick. There are 3 firms that started the LTO Consortium: HP, IBM, and Certance (was Seagate and now is Quantum).

In the earlier days of tape storage throughout the mid Eighties, the DLT format was the de-facto half inch cartridge standard in the market. Then the LTO format was released in an effort to displace the present DLT format. The similarity of size and form factor of the new LTO half-inch cartridges makes it easier for users of robotic tape libraries to migrate from DLT to LTO libraries.

LTO Ultrium is often used for the name of this open format technology since every generation will increase its native storage capability. LTO-1 has 100GB, LTO-2 has 200GB, LTO-3 jumps up to 400GB, LTO-4 has 800GB, and LTO-5 has 1500GB (1.5 Terabytes). Do you know what a Terabyte is?

New options are being added with every generation. The new LTO-4 and LTO-5 have encryption capabilities so tape cartridges have the info on them safely locked from intrusion by using Advanced Encryption which is  called AES Encryption methodology 256 bit. Starting with LTO-5, the fifth generation, there’s currently partitioning. By dividing up the LTFS (Linear Tape File System) into totally different partitions, this permits faster access times and additionally improved information management.

Future generations of LTO will keep increasing the storage capacity. One day, one cartridge can hold multiple TERABYTES of information.

Related LTO Brands
HP Hewlett Packard
IBM
Compaq
Dell
Quantum
Imation
Tandberg Data
Sun Microsystems

Iomega Jaz Disk Drives have lost their sizzle.

The Jaz drive was a removable disk storage system, introduced by the Iomega company in 1995. The product has since been discontinued. The Jaz disks were originally released with a 1 GB capacity (they were also 540 MB, but it was unreleased) in a 3½-inch form factor, which was a significant increase over Iomega's most popular product at the time, the Zip drive with its 100 MB capacity. The Jaz drive used only the SCSI interface (the IDE internal version is rare), but an adapter known as Jaz Traveller was available to connect it to a standard Parallel Port. The capacity was later increased to 2 GB through a drive and disk revision in 1998, before the Jaz line was ultimately discontinued in 2002.



Internal and external 1GB Iomega Jaz drives with media.



10598   Iomega

About SD Card

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SD (Secure Digital) card is about the size of a postage stamp and weights approximately two grams. SD card looks similar in size to a Multi Media Card but is smaller than older memory card types such as the Smart Media card and the Compact Flash card. SD cards are available with storage capacities as high as 4 gigabytes. The SD card was jointly developed by Matsushita, SanDisk, and Toshiba. The SD technology is used by more than 400 brands across dozens of product categories and more than 8,000 models, and is considered the de-facto industry standard. SD cards are more rugged than traditional storage medias. SD adapters allow the physical conversion of smaller SD cards to work in a larger physical slot, and basically are passive devices that connect the pins from the smaller SD card to the pins of the larger SD adapter.

 

WiFi, Wireless-N USB Adapter

Every one is cutting the wires. You see this with how we have WiFi every where. It is in our laptop computers, desktop computers and especially in our cell phones or internet phones. You see less voice calling and more online tasks being completed using wireless internet (WiFi) connections.

In many cases our desktop computers or laptops with standard PCI or Mini PCI wireless cards do not provide a stable connection for the reason of low wireless reception. To increase the reception we use external antennas.

But we have an other option which is more versatile,  that is having a Wireless USB Adapter in ones gadget kit.  In short, by using an USB wireless adapter, you can have around 60% better performance over the built-in WiFi that you find in laptops and desktops.

Secure Digital Card or SD card

Secure Digital card or SD card is a flash memory card that provides storage for portable various electronic devices like eBooks, digital cameras, PDAs, audio players, video recorders and mobile phones music players, camcorders and personal computers. SD cards are small in size, weighs approximately two grams and robust and have higher data transfer rates and low power consumption of primary energy, and mobile devices. It uses flash memory to provide non-volatile storage, which means that power is not necessary to retain stored data.
Secure Digital card is the size of postage stamp  It 'the same size as the MMC, but smaller than previous memory card types including Smart Media cards elderly and Compact Flash cards. Both MMC and SD cards can be encryption capabilities for protected content to ensure the secure distribution of copyrighted material, such as digital music, videos and books. SD cards are available with storage capacities up to 4 gigabytes.
Both MMC and SD card use metal connector contacts instead of the traditional pins and connectors, are therefore not subject to damage during handling

SD Card

Secure Digital (SD) is a flash (non-volatile) memory card format developed by Matsushita, SanDisk and Toshiba for use in portable devices, including digital cameras, handheld computers, PDAs and GPS units. As of 2007, SD card capacities range from 8 MB to 16 GB. Several companies have announced SD cards with 32 GB.

Kworld Computer

Cards with 4-32 GB are considered high-capacity. The format has proven to be very popular. However, compatibility issues between older devices and the newer 4 GB and larger cards and the SDHC format have caused considerable confusion for consumers.
SD cards are based on the older MultiMediaCard (MMC) format, but have a number of differences: ?The SD card is asymmetrically shaped in order not to be inserted upside down, while an MMC would go in most of the way but not make contact if inverted. SD cards typically have higher data transfer rates, but this is always changing, particularly in light of recent improvements to the MMC standard. Devices with SD slots can use the thinner MMCs, but the standard SD cards will not fit into the thinner MMC slots. SD cards can be used in CompactFlash or PC card slots with an adapter. miniSD and microSD cards can be used directly in SD slots with a physical interface adapter.There are some SD cards with a USB connector for dual-purpose use, and there are card readers which allow SD cards to be accessed via many connectivity ports such as USB, FireWire, and the parallel printer port. SD cards can also be accessed via a floppy disk drive with a FlashPath adapter.

 

SD Card

Secure Digital (SD) is a flash (non-volatile) memory card format developed by Matsushita, SanDisk and Toshiba for use in portable devices, including digital cameras, handheld computers, PDAs and GPS units. As of 2007, SD card capacities range from 8 MB to 16 GB. Several companies have announced SD cards with 32 GB.

Kworld Computer

Cards with 4-32 GB are considered high-capacity. The format has proven to be very popular. However, compatibility issues between older devices and the newer 4 GB and larger cards and the SDHC format have caused considerable confusion for consumers.
SD cards are based on the older MultiMediaCard (MMC) format, but have a number of differences: ?The SD card is asymmetrically shaped in order not to be inserted upside down, while an MMC would go in most of the way but not make contact if inverted. SD cards typically have higher data transfer rates, but this is always changing, particularly in light of recent improvements to the MMC standard. Devices with SD slots can use the thinner MMCs, but the standard SD cards will not fit into the thinner MMC slots. SD cards can be used in CompactFlash or PC card slots with an adapter. miniSD and microSD cards can be used directly in SD slots with a physical interface adapter.

There are some SD cards with a USB connector for dual-purpose use, and there are card readers which allow SD cards to be accessed via many connectivity ports such as USB, FireWire, and the parallel printer port. SD cards can also be accessed via a floppy disk drive with a FlashPath adapter.