Do printers have hard drives too?

I'm just curious.

I was clearing a whole load of old Word documents earlier, it was quite interesting going back through a few years of stuff i've typed. Some important, some not so.....then it got me thinking about that old thread about photocopiers having hard drives which store a copy of everything you scan into it.

So i wondered if your home printer would have the same kind of thing? We throw them away without a thought, but is any info kept on it?

Thanks.

CX.

reply to post by CX


Short answer...No

They typically have RAM which will not keep the document once it is unplugged. Eventually as Static Ram Hard Drives get cheaper this may become a problem. But right now Businesses will have options like this but a usually a home printer will not.

reply to post by CX


Hi there. Photocopiers and printers, by and large, do not have hard drives, per se. They usually DO often times have memory. How much really depends on the make and model. Except for maybe some very high end business models when the power is taken away the memory is wiped. I don't think you have to worry to much about someone getting info off of your printer if you throw it away.

Some may have...it allows the ability to store up multiple jobs but generally its going to be the more enterprise levels so your cheapo inkjet may not have it but your 120 ppm workgroup laser will certainly have some sort of long term storage to allow recovery of jobs due to power failures etc

reply to post by abeverage

as Static Ram Hard Drives get cheaper this may become a problem

Ive never heard of a static ram hard drive.

reply to post by PhoenixOD


Porbably means solid state hard drives (SSD's)

All printers have some sort of volatile memory which is deleted if unplugged, much like the RAM in your computer, mobile phone, tablets etc.

Someone mentioned enterprise printers that might have long term memory for recovery in case of malfunction. That would be handled by a print server, not by the printer itself, if at all.

If you're really concerned start looking into electronics and their respective labeling which will help you identify what each component does.


Static Ram Hard Drives (SSDs?) The closest thing I can think of is SRAM which has a subtype called Non-volatile SRAM, not really ideal for storing significant amounts of data.

Sounds like rubbish to me to be honest.

reply to post by Swizzy


a lot of the larger printers take on the print server role and these are the 30+ page per minute things designed for serious printing and with print jobs getting bigger its a balance between the cost of ram and a cheap small hard drive as even the fastest printer out there won't even worry a 10mbit/sec interface providing it the data and they have to be able to take multiple 100 page documents with ease

But a cheap inkjet will not have any form of storage that will survive a power cut and if you're paranoid....take it to the range if you live in the USA or apply a 10lb lump hammer for the rest of the world

Modern copy machines and printers have a similar hard drive to those found in PCs and laptops. These machines automatically store any document that has been printed or copied on the hard drive. This means that copy machines and printers may contain sensitive data on the hard drive which must be destroyed. This is often an overlooked security issue which could result in a data breach.

Usually when several copies of a document are needed, the document is scanned just once and the copies are made from the file that has been saved on the hard disk. The data can be accessed by removing the hard drive from the printer or copy machine and connecting it to a PC or an erasure station. There are no existing standards which state how the data on these devices should be permanently removed however the same measures must be practiced as when erasing computer hard drives.

Originally posted by PhoenixOD
reply to post by abeverage

 

as Static Ram Hard Drives get cheaper this may become a problem

Ive never heard of a static ram hard drive.

I actually meant solid state drives and use a Memory instead of an actual disk. I forget static doesn't mean non-volatile Like an SD card but with much larger capacity.

reply to post by abeverage


Yes static ram is super fast and super expensive and used mainly in L1/2/3 cache memory for CPU's

Originally posted by PhoenixOD
reply to post by abeverage

 

Yes static ram is super fast and super expensive and used mainly in L1/2/3 cache memory for CPU's

I am an old IT guy and I forget things now and then

reply to post by abeverage


No offense meant , it was just something that came up in a cert I was doing last month, I don't think id heard of it before then lol.

Originally posted by PhoenixOD
reply to post by abeverage

 

No offense meant , it was just something that came up in a cert I was doing last month, I don't think id heard of it before then lol.

edit on 1-7-2013 by PhoenixOD because: (no reason given)

None taken. I did my A+, Network+ some 13 years ago now and in IT that was like a Bazillion years ago...lol

reply to post by abeverage


I know the feeling, im on a bit of a renewing spree. Last month it was A+ 801 & 802 . This month its Network+ N10-005. I'm so bored of memorizing lengths , theoretical throughput and ancronyms right now. Security next month yay

Originally posted by Echoes
Modern copy machines and printers have a similar hard drive to those found in PCs and laptops. These machines automatically store any document that has been printed or copied on the hard drive. This means that copy machines and printers may contain sensitive data on the hard drive which must be destroyed. This is often an overlooked security issue which could result in a data breach.

Amazing that so many people on this thread don't have a clue. This poster is correct. Modern office printers, not the personal printers on your personal PCs, DO HAVE HARD DRIVES and, in fact, they run on Windows. Each print job is spooled onto the hard drive before it actually prints, thus allowing multiple users to use the same printer and print their jobs in one sitting. They also have IP addresses and are fully controllable via the Internet, from afar, if necessary. Ever seen a single printer servicing an entire table of PCs at a public library? That's a good example.

Thank you everyone, i was more concerned about the home printer, just your average cheap one.

Thanks again.

CX.