Data storage equipment

Any input/output equipment may be considered data storage equipment if it writes to and reads from a data storage medium. Data storage equipment uses either:

• portable methods (easily replaced),
• semi-portable methods requiring mechanical disassembly tools and/or opening a chassis, or
• inseparable methods meaning loss of memory if disconnected from the unit.

The following are examples of those methods:

Portable methods

• Hand crafting
• Flat surface
  • Printmaking
  • Photographic
• Fabrication
  • Automated assembly
  • Textile
  • Molding
  • Solid freeform fabrication
• Cylindrical accessing
• Card reader/drive
• Tape drive
  • Mono reel or reel-to-reel
  • Compact Cassette player/recorder
• Disk accessing
  • Disk drive
  • Disk enclosure
• Cartridge accessing/connecting (tape/disk/circuitry)
• Peripheral networking
• Flash memory devices

Semi-portable methods

• Hard disk drive
• Circuitry with non-volatile RAM

Inseparable methods

• Circuitry with volatile RAM
• Neurons^[4]

Recording medium

A recording medium is a physical material that holds data expressed in any of the existing recording formats. With electronic media, the data and the recording medium is sometimes referred to as "software" despite the more common use of the word to describe computer software. With (traditional art) static media, art materials such as crayons may be considered both equipment and medium as the wax, charcoal or chalk material from the equipment becomes part of the surface of the medium.

Some recording media may be temporary either by design or by nature. Volatile organic compounds may be used to preserve the environment or to purposely make data expire over time. Data such as smoke signals or skywriting are temporary by nature. Depending on the volatility, a gas (e.g. atmosphere, smoke) or a liquid surface such as a lake would be considered a temporary recording medium if at all.

Ancient and timeless examples

The Gutenberg Bible displayed by the United States Library of Congress, demonstrating printed pages as a storage medium.

A set of index cards in a file box are a nonlinear storage medium.

• Optical
  • Any object visible to the eye, used to mark a location such as a, stone, flag or skull.
  • Any crafting material used to form shapes such as clay, wood, metal, glass, waxquipu. or
  • Any branding surface that would scar under intense heat (chiefly for livestock or humans).
  • Any marking substance such as paint, ink or chalk.
  • Any surface that would hold a marking substance such as, papyrus, paper, skin.
• Chemical
  • RNA
  • DNA
  • Pheromone

Modern examples by energy used

Graffiti on a public wall. Public surfaces are being used as unconventional data storage media, often without permission.

Photographic film is a photochemical data storage medium

A floppy disk is a magnetic data storage medium

Hitachi 2.5 inch laptop hard drive. A hard drive is both storage equipment and a storage medium

• Chemical
  • Dipstick
• Thermodynamic
  • Thermometer
• Photochemical
  • Photographic film
• Mechanical
  • Pins and holes
    • Punch card
    • Paper tape
      • Music roll
    • Music box cylinder or disk
  • Grooves (See also Audio Data)
    • Phonograph cylinder
    • Gramophone record
    • DictaBelt (groove on plastic belt)
    • Capacitance Electronic Disc
• Magnetic storage
  • Wire recording (stainless steel wire)
  • Magnetic tape
  • Drum memory (magnetic drum)
  • Floppy disk
• Optical storage
  • Photo paper
  • X-ray
  • Microform
  • Hologram
  • Projected transparency
  • Optical disc
  • Magneto-optical disc
  • Holographic data storage
  • 3D optical data storage
• Electrical
  • Semiconductor used in volatile RAM microchips
  • Floating-gate transistor used in non-volatile memory cards

Modern examples by shape

A typical way to classify data storage media is to consider its shape and type of movement (or non-movement) relative to the read/write device(s) of the storage apparatus as listed:

• Paper card storage
  • Punched card (mechanical)
• Cams and tracers (pipe organ combination-action memory memorizing stop selections
• Tape storage (long, thin, flexible, linearly moving bands)
  • Paper tape (mechanical)
  • Magnetic tape (a tape passing one or more read/write/erase heads)
• Disk storage (flat, round, rotating object)
  • Gramophone record (used for distributing some 1980s home computer programs) (mechanical)
  • Floppy disk, ZIP disk (removable) (magnetic)
  • Holographic
  • Optical disc such as CD, DVD, Blu-ray Disc
  • Minidisc
  • Hard disk drive (magnetic)
• Magnetic bubble memory
• Flash memory/memory card (solid state semiconductor memory)
  • xD-Picture Card
  • MultiMediaCard
  • USB flash drive (also known as a "thumb drive" or "keydrive")
  • SmartMedia
  • CompactFlash I and II
  • Secure Digital
  • Sony Memory Stick (Std/Duo/PRO/MagicGate versions)
  • Solid-state drive

Bekenstein (2003) foresees that miniaturization might lead to the invention of devices that store bits on a single atom.

• Macroscopic 10-Terabit–per–Square-Inch Arrays from Block Copolymers with Lateral Order Science magazine article about perspective usage of sapphire in digital storage media technology

Weight and volume

Especially for carrying around data, the weight and volume per MB are relevant. They are quite large for written and printed paper compared with modern electronic media. On the other hand, written and printer paper do not require (the weight and volume of) reading equipment, and handwritten edits only require simple writing equipment, such as a pen.

With mobile data connections the data need not be carried around to have them available.