Means of preserving information

Keeping information out of date

The need to preserve information has appeared since ancient times, as every civilization sought to immortalize its beliefs and ideas and preserve them according to the tools and materials available to them, and from the ancient ways that man invented for preserving information is the inscription on stone or clay, and what indicated this means of preserving the information is the collection of monuments that were found in Different places of the world, which are estimated to be three thousand and six hundred years BC, but they are not writing, but rather inscriptions and drawings that have different connotations, and the most famous of them is the cuneiform writing that was found in the Fertile Crescent and it is related to the Sumerian civilization, as well as the matter in the Pharaonic civilization.

Means of preserving information today

Today, with the tremendous increase in the number of people, and the development taking place in all aspects of life, preserving information has become one of the most important priorities. Today, there are databases that keep the information of every individual in the country, and this information is transferred between state institutions and its ministries, as well as there are databases that preserve literary, scientific and other information. There are two main parts of the means of preserving information, namely:

Paper media

Paper media or traditional media are written on paper, and do not need a specific device to read them, and they are arranged according to certain criteria determined by the responsible person, and they are among the means that are frequently used. Due to its ease of carrying and transportation, and its low financial cost, it is accredited in many fields, especially in writing reports, pamphlets, dictionaries, encyclopedias, newspapers and magazines, and it is often issued at a certain time.

Paperless media

They are the containers in which information is preserved and retrieved, and specific devices are needed to write information on and retrieve it, and with the great development there are many types of them, and their advantages are:

Quick access to the required information.
Small size.
Easily copy them so that identical copies are obtained without error.
The possibility of modification, whether by deletion or addition.

Forms of non-paper media

There is a great variety of modern media for storing information, and companies are racing to manufacture them in smaller sizes, larger capacities and higher speeds, and of these types:

Hard disk: The unit for storing basic information in the computer, which is a rotating magnetic disk, on which an electromagnetic receiver is installed to write and read from it, and the hard disk can be external, that is, it is not located inside the computer and is connected through a USB connection. And it has several types that differ from each other in capacity and speed of rotation, namely:

SCSI hard disks.
IDE hard drives.
SATA hard drives.

Flash memory: It is a memory used for writing and deleting with ease, and is characterized by its great speed, small size, and ease of use. It is found in computers inside the BIOS system for the device to boot, as well as in digital cameras and video game consoles. CD \ DVD: These are discs that work with laser beams, and are made of plastic covered with aluminum. They have several types, one of which is to be written once, then become read-only, and some that allow writing and reading.

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