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The product comes loaded with a program that: tracks its stored data; thus, finding and updating files is a snap.

* Tape drives: Although tape remains one of the least expensive storage mediums--costing as little as a tenth of a cent per megabyte of stored data--it's frustratingly slow compared with hard disks or floppies.

Indexes to records within relational databases may be stored separately from the actual database files containing data records.

Due to the growing variety of information types that must be stored today -- such as text, images, graphics, audio, and video -- the variety of database software appropriate for information storage is also growing.

These databases can be used to display and play simultaneously the text, graphics, photographic images, and sound needed to show an annotated video clip from a movie such as "Gone with the Wind" that is stored on a CD-ROM.

The document imaging industry uses a standard for filing, and it's the equivalent of most office filing systems: Documents are stored in "file cabinets," which are made up of "file drawers," which in turn consist of "file sections" broken down into "file folders" with file names, numbers or both--allowing four levels of filing.

Q Do state laws cover the admission of optically stored records in legal proceedings?

* Material stored in this form is admissible as legal evidence.

* Microfilm can be stored safely for hundreds of years.