Running Head: SOFTWARE STORAGE 1

Software Storage Assignment

Name
University
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Part 1

Name of software: Trialware

Definition of software: Trialware is free software, fully featured and available for a set period of

time for evaluation purposes.

Description: Trialware software is usually distributed with most or all features available for use.

This is for users who want to evaluate what features the software includes, how these features

work, how the user can add these features to their workflow etc. After the evaluation period is

up, the software usually prompts user for purchasing a full license or deactivates some core

features to incentivize the user to purchase a full license.

Name of software: Open Source software

Definition of software: Open source is the kind of software users are legally allowed to share,

distribute, manipulate, change or otherwise modify they want.

Description: Open Source software is freely distributed under one of the various open source

licenses. Some open source licenses restrict the users to distribute the modified software under

same license. Also, open source software, as the name implies, usually distributes the source

code with the software. Some popular open source software are VideoLan's VLC media player,

blender modeling and animation suite, apache server software and git source code version

control system.

Name of software: Adobe Creative Cloud

Definition of software: Adobe creative cloud is a creative suite of multiple Adobe products for

designers, illustrators and artists which can fulfill all their creative needs.
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Description: Adobe creative cloud is comprised of a collection of software which includes

Adobe products for professional graphic designing, photo and video editing, web development

and web interface designing, word processing, and desktop publishing. This creative cloud has

multiple packages for individual users, small businesses and enterprise needs. The creative cloud

can be used to make flyers, high end animation, image and video editing, report making,

designing newsletters etc.

Name of technology: Radio-Frequency Identification or RFID

Definition of technology: RFID uses electromagnetic fields generated by tiny tags to identify an

object or a pet etc.

Description: RFID tags store information on them in electronic format. This information is read

by an RFID reader. There are two kinds of RFID tags. Active tags have their own power source

and have a range of hundreds of meters for commercially available technology. Passive tags do

not have their own power source and instead draw power from their reader's electromagnetic

fields.

Name of code: QR Code

Definition of code: QR Code stores information in a grid or matrix of black squares on a white

background.

Description: QR Code is a compressed visual representation of textual or binary data. It was

made popular in Japan in automobile industry for tracking car parts. QR Code requires a reader

equipped with a camera to read the information. This coding format includes alignment and

timing information on the matrix itself, along with version information. QR Code can have all

kinds of textual information, ranging from URLs to contact information, phone numbers, part
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numbers on an assembly line etc. Experimental usage of QR Code includes payment methods,

digital wallets, website login and marketing. 

Part 2

Secondary storage media have a long history of development and innovation, starting

with IBM 350. IBM 350 was a disk storgae unit developed as a part of IBM 305 computer. This

disk storage unit offered 5 million characters of storage space with a data transfer rate of 8800

characters per second ("Manual of Operation 305 R.A.M.A.C.", 1957). The complete storage

unit weighed one ton and had a mechanism which pushed the appropriate disk plate to the

read/write head for accessing data (IBM, 1957).

Next step in storage innovation came in 1961 with disk units which had one read/write

head for each disk plate ("IBM Archives: IBM 1311 disk storage drive", 2013). In the same year,

disk storage increased from typical capacity of 10 million characters to more than 200 million

characters. This increase in storage capacity was pivotal in replacing human computers with

electronic computers. Excess in storage capacity spurred banking, financial and insurance

institutions to invest in computing systems and in storing their data electronically. With this new

need for storage, there was an increase in innovation of disk drives and units.

In 1968, Memorex produced a hard drive unit which was compatible with IBM 2311

computer units ("Memorex 630 Disk Drive prototype at trade show - CHM Revolution", 2010).

This marked the beginning of an era of innovation for disk unit compatibility with IBM

computers. Many other companies started developing hard drive technology with focus on

decreasing hard drive mass and increasing storage capacity. 14 inch disk plates became de facto

standard in disk storage technology in this era.

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A major landmark in disk storage technology was introduction of IBM 3380 disk storage

unit. This gigantic storage unit was the first commercially available hard drive to boast over one

billion bytes of storage space ("IBM Archives: IBM 3380 direct access storage device", 2013).

Introduced in June 1980, this storage unit had more than four times the amount of storage and

almost twice the speed of data access than any other commercially available hard drive.

In late 1970s, eight inch and five inch form factors started gaining popularity, a trend

which continued throughout early 1980s. The first 3.5 inches form factor hard drive was

introduced in 1983. Also in 1983, IBM PC XT introduced internel hard drives for personal

computers for the first time. Soon thereafter, most personal computer manufacturers started

including internal hard drives for personal computers.

In 1985, the hard drive industry participation peaked at 75 manufacturers. That

participation was the highest in history because afterwards, companies started merging or being

bought by bigger companies. By the end of decade, almost 25 million hard drive units were

being manufactured. Also, many large form factor disk drives were abandoned for the now de-

facto standard 3.5 inches and 2.5 inches drives. This standard was brought about by high density

storage plates and increased demand for low mass disk drives by personal computer markets.

In 1990s, disk storage capacity continued to increase as well as demand for disk drives.

Soon, more than 150 million disk drive units were being shipped annually. A large portion of

these disk drives was personal computers. With the advent of Internet, personal computers

started becoming an essential part of everyday life. This also increased storage demands for

personal computers. People were saving their family pictures, documents, music collections,

home videos and much more on their computers. 3.5 inches and 2.5 inches form factors remained

standard in this decade. Many smaller form factors were introduced but were not able to gain any
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market. Also, many other storage options were introduced in this decade. USB Flash drives and

memory cards for digital cameras were the most successful ones. External backup drives also

became commonplace.

Storage media has seen many innovations since then. Introduction of Serial ATA and

then SATA III has increased the data access speed many times over. The world’s first

commercially available consumer grade one terabyte hard drive was introduced in 2007

(Perenson, 2007). In less than 10 years, this capacity has increased by ten times and prices have

gone down significantly. 60 terabyte hard drives are now available for commercial use (Anthony,

2016). Also, in recent years, solid state storage devices have seen multiple improvements in

capacity, size and price.

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References

Anthony, S. (2016). Seagate hits 1 terabit per square inch, 60TB hard drives on their way -
ExtremeTech. ExtremeTech. Retrieved 7 March 2017, from
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/122921-seagate-hits-1-terabit-per-square-inch-
60tb-drives-on-their-way

IBM Archives: IBM 1311 disk storage drive. (2013). Ibm.com. Retrieved 7 March 2017, from
http://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_1311.html

IBM Archives: IBM 3380 direct access storage device. (2013). Www-03.ibm.com. Retrieved 7
March 2017, from https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_3380.html

IBM,. (1957). IBM 305 RAMAC. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=zOD1umMX2s8

Manual of Operation 305 R.A.M.A.C.. (1957). Bitsavers' PDF Document Archive. Retrieved 7

March 2017, from http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ibm/305_ramac/22-6264-
1_305_RAMAC_Manual_of_Operation_Apr57.pdf

Memorex 630 Disk Drive prototype at trade show - CHM Revolution.

(2010). Computerhistory.org. Retrieved 7 March 2017, from
http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/mainframe-computers/7/161/688

Perenson, M. (2007). Hitachi Introduces 1-Terabyte Hard Drive. PCWorld. Retrieved 7 March

2017, from http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128400-page,1/article.html