5. Computerised vs non-computerised databases
What is it that makes computerised databases much more popular than paper-based ones?
| Computerised | Paper-Based |
|---|---|
| Can hold a vast amount of data | Limited by physical storage space available |
| Very fast to find a specific record | Can take a while to manually search through all of the records |
| Can easily search for a specific criteria e.g. "all of the people who live in Warwick" | Difficult to search for a specific criteria; every record would have to be manually looked at. |
| Can be used to analyse the data e.g. 'most popular selling item' | Very difficult to analyse the data |
| Data can be sorted into ascending or descending order on multiple criteria | Difficult to sort data on more than one criteria. |
| Can easily update or amend a record e.g. customer's address after moving house | Changes have to be done manually. Records can look messy if scribbled out. |
| Records are stored safely, they are available when needed | Records can be lost or misfiled making it hard to find them |
| The database can be kept secure by use of passwords | The only security would be locking up the records. |
| Easy to make a back-up in case of data loss | Difficult to make a back up because every page/card would have to be re-written or photocopied. This means extra storage space is needed. |
Challenge see if you can find out one extra fact on this topic that we haven't already told you
Click on this link: Advantages of a Computerised Database