5. Computerised vs non-computerised databases

What is it that makes computerised databases much more popular than paper-based ones?

Computerised Vs Paper-Based
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