Files, a collection of related data or program records, are the foundation of modern day computer programs. Without files saving previously calculated
information, computers would have to generate and process information from
scratch every time they are ran. In the
past files were commonly stored and shared on floppy disks, requiring a
physical handoff of a disk from one person to another to share data. As technology began to develop floppy disks
started to be displaced by CD-rooms which could hold more data and finally USB thumb
drives are now the standard for physical file transformation. While sharing files over a physical source
such as a USB or CD continued to grow they like the Floppy started to become cumbersome
in comparison to new online file sharing.
Today file sharing is mainly
done via the cloud. Sources like Dropbox
and Google Drive make sharing files between two parties extremely simple and
user friendly. Anyone with an internet
connection can transfer large amounts of data via these cloud sources. Other sources such as torrents which send
files via multiple hosts make it easy to transfer huge files. Even emails are able to send up to 25 megabytes
of data in attachments. That is equivalent
to about 250 one hundred kb floppy disks.
Image how long it would take to send 250 floppy disks and then manually
upload them to a computer compared to the minutes it takes to send an email and
download the attachments.
With the new technology sharing
data has become a field that more and more computer companies are pursuing. Big data and file sharing is useful for
thousands of applications and used by people throughout the whole world. Being able to quickly send files as well as
being able to send a large quantity of files has become a huge focus for companies. What started out as floppy disks holding under
100 kilobytes of data has turned into hard drives holding terabytes of files
for today’s file centric world of computing.
File sharing is a way of making files available to others to modify and download. There’re many different types of file sharing out there. I really like how you described Dropbox. File sharing is not only used through computer but also through mobile phone. File sharing makes the job easy for people working in a group to share and modify the same file. However, we need to be careful regarding its legality. If people distribute material with permission of the creator, it’s not illegal. However, when they distribute material without permission of the creator, they violate copyright law and thus subject to penalties under the law.
ReplyDeleteI'm proud to say that I remember using Floppy Disks. Fickle things they were. Held about 1.4MB and was prone to wiping all data for no real reason. I supposed USB drives have a similar problem where an OS will constantly ask you to format your USB drive, which spells imminent doom for it. Funny how technology works, the cost of one Floppy Disk is now the cost of one gigabyte of data. What I would really like to see is stability of future data storage. A hard drive lasts around five years, which is much too short considering the amount of data a modern drive can carry. That is just my opinion though.
ReplyDeleteGreat post and cool graphics. I found a typo though. You have "Fike Sharing" in your title. Easy fix.. I like how you cover this subject starting from Floppy Disks. I still remember them too. We had to carry a couple of them because more often that we would like they will get damage. It was hard to keep them working and we needed to have a little box to keep them safe in our backpacks. It is crazy to think that was just a few years ago. Can you imagine if we where to have the latest smartphone back then.and be able to email our teachers or submit some homework using the device. Technology keeps getting better and better and we definitely benefit from it.
ReplyDeleteHi Joseph, it is nice reading your post. You mentioned about Floppy Disks, and it bring many of my old memories back from middle school. I still remember when I was still a middle school student, in order to prevent it from damaging, in addition to buying the disk, I also needed to buy a little plastic box to keep it safe. The declining of Floppy Disk also reminds how fast computer technology changes and the development of clouding computer. Last but not least, even though floppy disk is being deprecated, its inner structure is still a important study for us.
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