The Future of CDs and DVDs

Even as people are trying to keep themselves up-to-date with these newly invented products, the unsung heroes of the past are almost immediately forgotten becoming obsolete. Floppy drives are a classic example to illustrate this trend.

Optical Drives Vs Floppy Drives

A decade back, I would have banked upon floppy disks to store my data. If I wanted to store a large amount of data, I would have used multiple floppy disks. However, a major disadvantage was that these floppy disks failed most of the times when I relied upon them to retrieve the information. However, I could not complain much because they were the cheapest and the common portable storage device available in the market. It is a no mean feat that they have been able to be in business for almost 3 decades from 1970s to late1990s.

However, in the 1990s as the CDs and DVDs came into the market, the popularity of the floppy drives began to decline. These days most of the computer manufacturers do not even bother to include a floppy disk drive on the computers unless specified by customers.

CDs and DVDs are collectively referred as optical media as they use the laser beam technology to write and read on the media. These devices have a higher storage space than the floppy disks, are far more reliable and are compact too. Although, initially they might have been a little costlier, with increased usage, now these disks have become extremely cheap.

So, even as the scientists carry on their experiments to come up with a better product, would the optical media, that have been reigning for almost 2 decades now, fade away into history, trailing the same path as the floppy disks?

History Can Repeat Itself

Although, changes are inevitable and the optical media would one day find its way out of the market, some industry experts feel that the day is not too far away. They base their arguments on the following reasons:

1. With increased usage of electronic media to store data, people are looking at devices with even larger storage capacity. Even for back up, they require the need of multiple optical disks to save the information. Naturally, they are now looking for alternatives that could provide them a higher storage space and be portable as well. The research is being carried out in this direction and once such a media is found, optical disks might be replaced. Who knows? We might even come across devices that have capacity to store terabytes of data in future.

2. Apart from official purposes, the CDs and DVDs find their use in the entertainment industry. Now with internet offering ways to download music as well as movies, people find it easier and a cheaper means of access rather than having to hunt for physical versions of CDs and DVDs. In the year 2002 alone, the sales of the CD had fallen down to 9% compared to the previous year. With the advent of MP3 players, the sales of music CDs have further reduced. Also, with movie lending libraries available online, people need not go out to purchase or borrow CD or DVDs.

3. USB devices are available with greater storage space and are compatible with a lot of electronic devices. There are so small and can be easily carried around. For this reason, a lot of users are shifting from optical disks to USB devices.

What Lies Ahead

Although, people are looking at enhanced storage devices, it would be difficult to completely wipe out the market for CDs and especially the DVDs. It might be difficult to come up with a new product that would be priced as low as these disks despite their high reliability. However, we could expect better quality CDs and DVDs that might be developed with enhanced audio and video features in the near future.

Already, the vendors are trying to enhance the market for these products by making these disks even cheaper. Even the entertainment industry is cutting the cost of renting the movie CDs and DVDs in order to increase their market.

It might take few more years to develop a storage media that is better in performance, cheaper in price and more reliable than the optical drives. Until then our optical media will rule the market…

Article Source: http://www.goldenpalacedownload.com/articles/

James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. If you are concerned about data loss and would like more information on Data Recovery see www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated