Medical Image Storage

Mass storage devices are divided into the following four categories: magnetic media, optical media, magnetic tapes and other media (such as holographic storage) that are still in development. Disk capacity is growing rapidly, and the future direction is terabyte desktop disks. In 2000, the price dropped to 3 cents/MB. Among optical storage devices, DVD is a hot spot, but its influence is far less than that of CD-ROM technology. DVD can be used as a backup medium, but it is still insufficient as a storage medium. The rewritable DVD is not yet mature. New developments in magnetic tape include multi-track recording, magnetoresistive heads, and new formats that allow random access. The price of the magnetic tape is very attractive, but it cannot be moisture-proof, nor close to the magnetic field, and the requirements of the storage place are relatively strict.

Backup (archiving) is a dynamic process, and technological changes must be taken into account, and the archiving strategy must take this into consideration. For example, an organization’s 7-year archive capacity is 11TB, so it now buys 11TB storage media, but the price of the storage media will fall in the future and the technology will also change, so this is not cost-effective.

The performance, reliability and capacity of the database are directly related to the performance of the PACS system. Every flow of images in the PACS system is related to the database, but the database technology of PACS has been neglected. This will be changed when PACS is integrated into the MIS system. The development of high-availability technology will become more and more important as users become more dependent on PACS.