Newroute Sustainable Technology

Data storage

The hard disk used on computers today was invented by a team of researchers from IBM in 1956. It weighed over a ton, was nearly the size of a small car and had a capacity of 5 megabytes, which is about enough to store about three minutes of mp3 music.

The computer's data is stored on a stack of circular alloy or glass platters coated with a very fine layer of ferrous material. Read-write heads pass over the surface of the platters, magnetising them in certain areas. It works a bit like a cassette tape - remember those?

Over 50 years of refinement has improved the capacity and portability, but the technology is much the same today as it was all those years ago. They are wonders of of modern engineering, but they are noisy and prone to mechanical failure. All it takes is a single knock at the right time, and the disk containing all your work is done for. They also get hot and consume quite a lot of power, especially when they start turning.

Our computers use flash memory technology. Flash memory is solid state; it has no moving parts, and is therefore far less sensitive to mechanical failure. It also runs without getting hot and consumes almost no power at all.

The computer is designed to take advantage of online storage for all of your work. This is the most reliable way of ensuring your data is kept safe, and that you can access it wherever you are. All you need is an internet connection, and you can work on your files anywhere in the world. No need to worry about a virus or a hard drive failure taking out all of your work.

It's different, but we are sure you will like it.