stems to access information for daily transactions and to archive backup copies of computer files and databases on hard drives controlled by servers with specialized software. They are used by online as well as brick-and-mortar stores that need access to credit card and customer service data to authorize purchases and resolve customer complaints. Biopharmaceutical companies use storage systems in their refinement of and development of new drugs. They can change the amount of particular chemicals they add to drug formulations and track how each alteration changes how drugs' effectiveness is impacted by each input. These changes are tracked over time. The ability to track massive amounts of data during drug development www.TechnicalPDF.com is speeding the time to develop and improve drugs' effectiveness. According to a chemist at a bio-tech firm: "The decline in costs of mass storage has greatly impacted our research and development. We can purchase huge amounts of storage to help us analyze how changing inputs to drugs during development results in chemical changes." Telephone and cable TV companies store massive amounts of customer billing and usage data. Their customer service representatives access much of this information when customers call with questions about bills or to make changes to their service. Other critical functions of data in storage systems are to detect patterns of financial fraud, authorize credit card transactions, and increase the speed of stock trading by supplying near real time access to changes in stocks and bonds trades. Without access to customer and organizational data, organizations cannot manage daily operations efficiently. Small and medium-sized organizations store databases and back up files in the cloud or on standard on-site computers. Larger organizations, however, require storage systems to manage the large number of requests to access and input information to complex storage systems. The level of complexity of storage systems is such that in large data centers, a specialized