Tapes and close to a quarter-century.

[Jon maddog Hall]

gaf at blu.org said:
> But, we are  also seeing the cost of solid-state memory coming down. How many
> of us  carry thumb drives on our keychains. Right now a data DVD can hold
> about  8GB the flash drives are up to at least 4GB (but at a significantly
> higher  price per byte). Solid state storage is kind of the holy grail of
> media,  but given the speed at which the technology is moving, it could
> possibly  replace CDs and DVDs as storage devices. 

 
Mram seems to be making good progress, and unlike Flash memory it does not degrade
over time.  Plus its read/write speeds are dramatically faster.

Currently prices are higher than Flash, but they have the potential for becoming lower
than disk in high volume.  For those who believe that the best way to back up
data is removable hard disk drives, this is good news.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5164110.stm
http://www.internetnews.com/infra/article.php/2219411

md

P.S. And you thought I only knew about ANCIENT things.  :-)
-- 
Jon "maddog" Hall
Executive Director           Linux International(R)
email: maddog at li.org         80 Amherst St. 
Voice: +1.603.672.4557       Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A.
WWW: http://www.li.org

Board Member: Uniforum Association
Board Member Emeritus: USENIX Association (2000-2006)

(R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries.
(R)Linux International is a registered trademark in the USA used pursuant
   to a license from Linux Mark Institute, authorized licensor of Linus
   Torvalds, owner of the Linux trademark on a worldwide basis
(R)UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the USA and other
   countries.