Emerging Data Storage Technologies

There are three things of great concern when it comes to data storage. The first concern is the capacity of a device in terms of the amount of data that can be contained in the device. The second concern is the performance of the device used to store the data. The third concern is the physical size of the device used to store up the data. This paper looks at various forms of emerging technologies used in the storage of data including hard drives filled with helium, shingled magnetic recording, DNA, holographic disks, quantum physics, flash-based solid-state drives, automated tiered storage, storage virtualisation, and cloud storage. These and other firms, as well as individuals, need to store data. As years continue to roll by, the amount of data stored continues to rise.

This trend does not seem to reduce or remain constant anytime soon. This calls for innovation in designing storage devices or machines with better storage capacities. The makers of storage devices are working on the innovation of storage mechanisms that will either increase the capacity of data storage or enhance the storage of huge amounts of data in a relatively lesser space (Harvey, 2016). The physical size of the storage device also determines whether it can be installed on another device or not. As stated in the introductory bit of this paper, the possibility of data storage to reduce in the future is very low. This implies that data storage will progressively continue to grow bigger. The future calls for the design of devices to be used in storing data amounting to gigabytes, petabytes, zettabytes or even domegemegrottebytes.

These amounts of data are huge in nature and their storage needs new models of innovation. This reduction in friction is what reduces the overheating. The disks filled with helium can also take in more disks (Pinola, 2015). This increases their capacity. The disadvantage of this technology is that it is more expensive as compared to drives that are filled with air. That is, it costs more to produce a hard drive filled with helium that to produce a hard drive filled with air given the memory unit produced is of the same capacity. It also facilitates a successful process of obtaining data while ensuring data integrity and avoiding compromise. Another advantage of this form of technology is that it can also use the traditional reading and writing elements in the drives.

The disadvantage of this form of technology is that it is relatively more expensive. However, the use of the traditional elements for writing or reading in the drives makes it possible to reduce the cost of producing these units (Grochowski, 1998). Another disadvantage of this form of technology is poor performance. In addition, heat and humidity endanger the life of optical disks. The DNA hard drives are deemed to have the ability to overcome these challenges. They can last for thousands of years and in any climatic condition. Though incredibly awesome in storage capacity, DNA drives are poor in performance and extremely expensive in terms of production (Pinola, 2015). Poor performance results from the fact that reading or writing data on the drives take a relatively long period.

In the past, solid-state drives that were flash-based in nature were produced for use majorly by consumers while the hard disk drives were used extensively in enterprises. This trend has been shifting in the recent years as enterprises have been progressively moving into adopting the use of solid-state drives that are flash-based (Bez & Pirovano, 2004). One advantage that has facilitated the use of this kind of technology in enterprises is its ability to ensure higher performance. This is made possible by the difference in the technology used in the construction of these two kinds of disks. Flash-based SSDs are made using semiconductor technology that is solid in state. In the past years, this grading would have cost the IT team more time in order to sort the data into various categories (Dutta, 2013).

This would involve the use of various forms of storage arrays. The innovation of a software that makes the storage process via tiering automatic has made it easier for organisations and enterprises to store and sort data. This software makes the process of relocating hot and cold data across different forms of tiers used for storage purposes. One big advantage of this option of storing data is that it less expensive. As the amounts of data continue to increase, firms need to purchase new storage devices. For a company that consumes gigabytes of data on a daily basis, the cost of storing data on the physical devices may be unfriendly. This is due to the relatively higher cost of huge capacity devices.

This disadvantage can be basically eliminated by the application of cloud storage. This form of storage technology seems to be cheaper and infinite in capacity (Hayes, 2008). However, there is need to conduct more research in order to improve the performance of some of the emerging devices which are intended for use in storing data. Other forms of technology such as DNA have high potential but their cost is extremely unfavourable. Other than fixing their concentration on physical devices, companies should also consider the application of virtual mechanisms for storing data such as the cloud technology. Another mechanism of making the storage of data advanced, easier, cheaper and reliable is to innovate a way of combining various forms of technologies. For instance, Vshpere 5.