Anyone who uses computers knows how much storage is important, as storage capacities have increased immensely and for a very reasonable price, which means anyone can acquire a large-capacity storage device, for storing his data, for backing up, or for any other purpose.

Computers are based on storage devices, as the programs needs to be stored somewhere to be run from there, mostly it will be a Hard-Disk drive, either internal or an external one.

Which storage types of solutions do we have today ???

1. Compact Disc, DVD, DVD/RW – those are writable CDs/DVDs which you can burn files to, and store for a long time, as long as they stay at a cool place.
2. Hard-Disk drivers, internal or external – These are the most common storage devices we know since the beginning. They have increased in size and can contain a large amount of data. They can be connected together by a controller, to create a larger continuous storage space, for even larger capacities (RAID controllers). The downfall of such drives is that if they FALL they are most likely become unusable.
3. Solid state storage – like USB flash memory units, smart cards, SSD, etc… – which increase in capacity, and will eventually I believe reach a large amount of capacities, hard disk drives do. The reliability is much higher than a hard-disk. If the SSD fails, it doesn’t get damaged and it usually smaller and more easy to carry.
4. DAS – direct-attached storage – This means a digital storage system, which is directly attached to a server or workstation, without a network connection (which has the network limitation, in terms of read/write speeds.
5. SAN – Storage based on fiber-optic networks, which guarantee a fast connection – This storage solution enables the Gigabyte speed of data traffic between host and destination. Usually used in distant storage locations.
6. NAS – Network Attached storage – solution for multiple clients simultaneously, good for data archiving, backup and redundant storage.

After giving some examples, you can see that there is a storage technology for each purpose, some intended for large organizations, some can be used by regular users, even for home backup purposes.

You can find a good comparison table on this link:
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci1088267,00.html

Laptops, are portable computers, their main use is their portability, so they need to be light and at a convenient carry size. Laptop technology enables the laptops to become thinner, more powerful and there are more affordable models, that can suit a student’s budget. When in the past laptops where reachable only by those who could pay their price, today anyone can find an affordable laptop.

Most of laptops problems are their battery life, their resources are consuming the batteries and achieve only a few hours of constant use without a recharge. Even though there are 9 cell batteries (6 cells are the common ones) and the recommendation is to place another battery in your bag as a replacement, someone needs to find a solution for this problem. We know cell phones have been able to achieve longer battery wait time (when the cell phone is not used) which can be for days without recharge, using them saves energy and use time is viable for a couple of hours only.

Laptop CPU‘s – The laptop CPU’s are forming the type of laptop you are getting according to their performance and their designated audience. There are computer for students, gamers, business, graphic designers and some even replace your desktop computer in terms of performance.

We have: AMD, Celeron, Core 2 Duo, Core Duo, Mac-Book, Power-book laptops which all are designated for different purposes. The CPU’s are mostly lower-powered than our known desktop CPU’s, since they need to save battery life, this also enables them to be cooler than desktop computers an we all know laptops tend to heat up. Currently we are moving toward Dual CPU‘s which have better performance, but in time I am sure we will see more powerful CPU’s with Quad core CPU’s showing up on our laptops.
If you need a powerful laptop, for gaming or graphics, use the Intel’s Core 2 Duo processors and the T7… Series if you need to cheap out, use AMD processors or older Intel chip set.

Mini laptops – These series of laptops around 8 – 10 inch screen size, are becoming more common. Mostly since we needed a more affordable laptops, which are mostly used by students around the world that needs little of the laptops, as they use it for browsing the internet and for Office applications (Word, Excel, PDF reading etc…). Such laptops do not need much power, they just need to be light, thin, and compact. The mini laptops cost around 400$ and the 10 Inch ones become the most common ones. Thought they are mostly coming with a WSVGA 1024×600 resolution, Intel Atom 1.66Ghz processor, 160GB hard-disk, around 10 hours of battery life, 1GB DDR2 RAM (2GB RAM Max), Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1.

Example of Mini Laptops/Notebooks:
ASUS 1005HA 10″, Dell Inspiron Mini 1011 10″, Samsung NC10 10″, Lenovo S10-3t 10″, Acer AOD250 10″, Toshiba Mini 300 NB305 10″.

Laptop screens – LED (light-emitting diode ) laptop screens are becoming common on almost any laptop nowadays, but the advanced technology of laptop screens are going toward OLED (organic light emitting diode) screens. The OLED screens do not require a backlight to function, which enable them to display deeper black levels and be thinner.

Blu-ray players – Laptops are coming out with the new Blu-ray DVD drives for Blu-ray discs which can contain up to 25GB, which enable to play high definition videos. You can find these Blu-ray DVD drives on these Netbooks: Sony Vaio VGN-AR370 CTO, Toshiba Satellite P505-S8980, Dell XPS M1730 and more.

GPS Laptops – HSPDA – There are new laptops that contain HSPDA technology chip, that enable 3G (3rd generation mobile telephone communication protocol) and GPS capabilities that enable you to use your laptop for navigation. There are some car cradles that enable the connection of a laptop into your car – to enable the use of their media center and their road navigation’s programs to be used while traveling your car. We used to see 3G USB modem cellular sticks that enabled your laptop to be connected to the internet even when there is no Wi-Fi spot around, but now they are going to be built-into the laptops, it is just a matter of time.

Touch Screen – There are touch screen laptops out there. You probably started to see many Tablet PC’s coming out, like the iPad but there are also regular laptops who comes with a touch screen, some have swiveled screens.
Example Laptops with touch screen capabilities:
Toshiba Portégé® M780, Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t, Samsung NB30-Black.