The progression of computer technology has experienced fast-paced advancement since its inception, and computers & other devices have had to keep up. The development and use of data storage devices & services for computers started in the 1950s and has exponentially progressed up to the present day. Let’s take a look at the technology of punch cards and move all the way up to the cloud storage available today:
1950s – The existing technology during the ‘50s consisted of punch cards made up of areas with and without holes. The spaces on the punch cards symbolized either a zero or a one and could store up to 960 bits.
1960s – This decade brought about the development of magnetic tape, which could store 10,000 times as much as a punch card in a single reel. Although many people are familiar with audio and video cassettes that utilized magnetic tape, some do not realize how much of an impact it had on the computer industry.
1970s – 5.25” floppy disks were developed during this time period and, in addition to being able to store 1.2 MBs, were used to ship classic computer games of this era such as the Sierra’s King’s Quest series.
1980s – 3.5” floppy disks offered increased storage space and a single one of these disks could hold up to 375 single-spaced pages of text.
1990s – Two major storage devices were developed during the ‘90s and consisted of CDs and zip disks. CDs were tied into the music revolution and could store about 80 minutes of tunes. Zip disks were ideal for backing up files because of their speedy read/write abilities and their large storage capacity.
2000s – The first decade of the new millennium also brought about the creation of two important computer storage devices: the flash drive and the portable hard drive. An 8GB flash drive can store approximately 200,000 web pages and portable hard drives with a single terabyte can hold about 16 days of DVD-quality video.
Storage of the Present – Cloud storage offers nearly unlimited storage capabilities and can be accessed through any device that utilizes the internet.
How do you store your files? Tell us in the comments below.
Follow Channels and Categories