A university library is digitising its collection of rare manuscripts and needs to store the digital copies. (a) Explain why the university needs a large st...

(a) The university needs a large storage capacity because:

1. High-resolution scans of manuscripts produce very large file sizes, often tens or hundreds of megabytes per page, to capture fine details of the original text and illustrations. [1]
2. With thousands of manuscripts to digitise, the total storage requirement will be in the terabytes, far exceeding what a single standard drive could hold. [1]

(b) A RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) system combines multiple hard drives that work together to store data, often with built-in redundancy. [1] Two advantages:

1. If one drive in the array fails, the data can be rebuilt from the remaining drives using the redundancy information, preventing data loss. [1] This is critical for irreplaceable manuscript scans.
2. RAID can improve read and write speeds by distributing (striping) data across multiple drives simultaneously, so large image files can be read and written faster than with a single drive. [1]

(c) Two security concerns about cloud storage for rare manuscript images:

1. Data stored in the cloud could potentially be accessed by unauthorised users if the cloud provider's security is breached through hacking or insider threats. [1] The university has a duty to protect its unique cultural assets.
2. The university may not have full control over where the data is physically stored, as cloud providers often distribute data across data centres in different countries. [1] This raises concerns about data sovereignty and the legal jurisdiction under which the data falls.