Data Storage
I have been pretty good when it comes to backing up files. I have a heap of back-up CD's, USB sticks together with shrinking shelf space and a number of CD coasters from some burn failures to prove it (any of you identifying with this?). Recently however, I decided on an external hard-drive allowing me to store 1Terabyte of information.
After shopping around, talking to various geeks etc. for what brand, I found one at a reasonable price. It's a neat, sleek little black box and doesn't take up a lot of space on my desk. The process of transferring files was ‘easy' and ‘less' time consuming. Ticking all the boxes I'm a happy gal thus far.
When it comes to the digital world, do you really know how much storage you need? Let's get back to basics. We're talking storage in megabytes (MB), gigabytes (GB) and terabytes (TB). Contrary to belief, most people believe that the conversions are in round numbers but this is inaccurate. A single byte actually contains 8 consecutive ‘bits'. This odd number results from the fact that computers use binary (base two) math, instead of a decimal (base ten) system.
Thus: 1024 Bytes = 1KB; 1024KB = 1MB; 1024MB = 1GB; 1024GB = 1TB. (still with me?)
We then go up to Petabytes, Exabytes, Zettabytes and Vottabytes, (all of which sound like prospective names for rock bands) but I digress - how does this convert into files? Well, depending on the size of each individual file, song or movie, 1TB holds about the same amount of information as all of the books in a large library or approximately 1610 CDs worth of data, which is pretty impressive. So if you are looking at external hard drives, most start at around 250GB but usually for another $50 you can double that capacity to 500GB. This would store around 710 Movies, or 135,000 audio files or 550,000 photos. If you want to consider backing up onto your average CD-R compact disk then I have a table on my website to help you out when it comes to how much you can store on an average disk.
I'm hoping all of this has empowered your inner-geek and relieved some pressure off your outer-technophobe. After all this upgrading to an external hard-drive, I've since been advised to still back-up onto CD's just in case something happens to my new sleek neat black office fashion accessory. Yep, my face was about ready to fashion it's own version of a Terabyte when I heard that as well.
(C) Angela Miller-Davis is a Professional Organiser who helps people to find solutions for an organised lifestyle through her consultancy Less Equals More, Brisbane. http://www.lessequalsmore.com.au Her Blog is at http://lessequalsmore.wordpress.com/ Angela is a member of NAPO (National Association of Professional Organizers) http://www.napo.net/
