Why does a photocopier even need a harddrive? Why don't they use just a small amount of cheap volatile memory?

In reply to this comment by TheGenk:
Why does a photocopier even need a harddrive? Why don't they use just a small amount of cheap volatile memory?

Copiers cannot depend solely on volatile memory alone because the file size of scanned documents can easily exceed the size of affordable RAM solutions. This is especially true when you need to keep an entire document stored in memory (such as when you wanted to print multiple copies of the document in page-order).

In the 'old' days, when copiers didn't use harddrives they were unable keep copied sets in order, they would scan one page, make 10 copies, then scan the next page and then 10 more copies, etc. Then the operator would have to collate all the pages of the sets into the correct order. This was extremely tedious!

The use of harddrives removes that old limitation and allows for very large documents to be scanned and collated.

Well someone's got a few copies of my dick and balls.

There is simply no excuse for this. Software to securely erase hard drives is cheap and easily obtainable. It needs to be standard, and should have been standard from the first hard drive installed.

There's a real good case here for a class action lawsuit, methinks.

*geek *news

Adding video to channels (Geek, News) - requested by Stingray.