Flash memory was invented in the early 1980s by Japanese engineer Masuoka Fujio, who was then working at the Toshiba Corporation and who was searching for a technology that would replace existing data-storage media such as magnetic tapes, floppy disks, and dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips.
It also supports three different types of removable storage media, including Sony's proprietary memory-stick removable flash cards, CompactFlash, and IBM 's Microdrive technology.
In the music and digital film industries, hardware manufacturers have gravitated to flash memory -- solid-state storage media enclosed in small, plastic cases.
Now these devices, like the Memory Stick, are also becoming the storage media of choice for other consumer products.
The lower encoding rate means that memory cards, compact discs and other storage media should now be able to store twice the amount of high-quality music files.
Recently, Multi-Level Cell (MLC NANDD flash memory is becoming widely used as storage media for mobile devices such as mobile phones, MP3 players, PDAs and digital cameras.
Data on DVDs are encrypted using a technology called the Content Scrambling System, or CSS.New kinds of storage media, such as memory cards and minidiscs, will also soon come equipped with a digital lock.
Modern storage media include magnetic tapes and disks, magnetic bubble memories, optical data storage read by lasers, videodisks, and electron beam-addressable memory systems.
*Choose your storage media carefully.
Various optical and magnetic-optical hybrid removable storage media are also quite common, such as CD-ROMs (compact disc read-only memory) and DVD-ROMs (digital video [or versatile] disc read-only memory).
NAND flash memory has become one of the most popular storage media for portable devices, such as MP3 players, MMC cards and solid state drives (SSDs).
