Raw data
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Raw data is a term for unprocessed data. It is a relative term (see data). Raw data can be input to a computer program or used in manual analysis procedures such as gathering statistics from a survey. It can refer to the binary data on electronic storage devices such as hard disk drives (also referred to as low-level data).
In computing it may have the following attributes: possibly containing errors, not validated; in several different (colloquial) formats; uncoded or unformatted; and suspect, requiring confirmation or citation. For example, a data input sheet might contain dates as raw data in many forms: "31st January 1999", "31/01/1999", "31/1/99", "31 Jan", or "today". Once captured, this raw data may be processed and stored as a single format, perhaps a Julian date, so as to be easier for computers and humans to interpret during later processing.
On electronic storage devices it is represented as binary numbers and is stored as sectors typically of 512 bytes. When interpreted as a file system by the disk operating system, it becomes a collection of files and their metadata.
