{"id":133,"date":"2024-09-03T14:44:41","date_gmt":"2024-09-03T14:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.replicationcentre.co.uk\/blog\/?p=133"},"modified":"2012-12-10T14:44:41","modified_gmt":"2012-12-10T14:44:41","slug":"flash-drives-in-comparison-to-disc-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.replicationcentre.co.uk\/blog\/flash-drives-in-comparison-to-disc-media-133.html","title":{"rendered":"Flash Drives in Comparison to Disc Media"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Computer  writable compact discs have been around in the consumer sector since  1995 (when writers finally dropped below $1000) and digital video discs  have been on the commercial market since 1996. Flash media, on the other  hands, has been accessible since the mid 1980&#8217;s. Yet despite this fact,  many people have seen discs as a storage medium in a more positive  light than flash media.<\/p>\n<p>One  major difference between the two is that commercial media has been  traditionally delivered on discs since the 1980&#8217;s when the CD audio  format stormed the music world. With the advent of DVDs to drive out  video cassettes in the mid 1990&#8217;s, the idea of discs as media storage  was firmly entrenched in consumers&#8217; minds.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-134\" title=\"Connecting USB flash memory stick\" src=\"http:\/\/www.replicationcentre.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/flash-drive.jpg\" alt=\"Connecting USB flash memory stick\" width=\"425\" height=\"282\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.replicationcentre.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/flash-drive.jpg 425w, https:\/\/www.replicationcentre.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/flash-drive-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 425px) 100vw, 425px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Flash  media on the other hand has been very popularly powering small  equipment for a long time. Originally consumers used PCMCIA cards to add  storage to laptops in the 1980&#8217;s. Digital cameras have used varying  flash media formats since they arrived on the market. Mobile phones are  expanded by use of flash cards.<\/p>\n<p>The  perception is that media long term storage is best accomplished with  discs, while recording that media is often done using flash. In recent  years, flash media has become a component of high end computer storage  as SSDs have been brought to market.<\/p>\n<p>Now,  the question is, when should you be using disc media, and when is flash  the better bet? The answer is that it&#8217;s highly dependent on what you  want to do.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li dir=\"ltr\">If  you want to store audio files in a standard CD format, you have a  single choice: the writable CD disc. This is not a good bargain in terms  of actual storage space, however.<\/li>\n<li dir=\"ltr\">If  you are looking for easy access to your media at all times, you might  choose to go flash with an SSD, but this will be quite expensive. (A  traditional hard drive is a great alternative here, and if you buy a  sufficiently large one it&#8217;s extremely inexpensive on a per GB basis.)<\/li>\n<li dir=\"ltr\">For  larger file storage if you don&#8217;t mind swapping discs, DVDs are  extremely affordable per GB. (Only large traditional hard drives will  generally outperform them on price. Flash media has no chance.)<\/li>\n<li dir=\"ltr\">If  you&#8217;re looking to move from place to place with highly portable, robust  media, flash memory is your clear choice. From USB thumb drives to  memory cards of varying sizes, many devices can read this type of  memory. It&#8217;s not susceptible to wear and tear as much as discs are.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>While  it is clear that flash memory is more expensive than DVDs, prices  continue to fall for flash, while discs have remained relatively  unchanged in terms of price for a significant period of time. In the  future it&#8217;s probably that we will be trading in our discs for something  &#8220;flashier&#8221; but for now, DVD discs in particular offer excellent long  term storage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Computer writable compact discs have been around in the consumer sector since 1995 (when writers finally dropped below $1000) and digital video discs have been on the commercial market since 1996. Flash media, on the other hands, has been accessible since the mid 1980&#8217;s. Yet despite this fact, many people have seen discs as a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.replicationcentre.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.replicationcentre.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.replicationcentre.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.replicationcentre.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.replicationcentre.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.replicationcentre.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135,"href":"https:\/\/www.replicationcentre.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions\/135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.replicationcentre.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.replicationcentre.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.replicationcentre.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}