Digital Storage

                                 Digital Storage: Then & Now [Infographic]

Did you know that 30 years ago 1 GB of storage cost over $300,000? That is nothing less than insane when you start thinking about it. The improvements and optimizations to digital storage space have been insanely progressing over the last few decades, and there seems to be no end in sight. I recently wrote in an article that said you can get a SSD (solid state drive) USB flash drive for around $2,500-$3,000. It’s a lot of money, but when you start comparing it to the prices 30 years ago, you suddenly realize that it’s not that much after all.

Besides, the amount of storage space that previously didn’t even fit in a room now fits in a device no bigger than your thumb, which is incredible. Digital storage space has revolutionized our society in the ultimate way. We have officially gone mobile. The history of digital storage space is an interesting one to say the least. I did some research and came across some rather interesting statistics that could possibly blow your mind. If you look at the cost of digital storage space since the ’80s, you’ll quickly see the rapid increase in the amount of storage space and the decrease in cost. We can safely say that whatever content we’re creating today, it requires a lot more memory than it did 30 years ago. It’s a good thing digital storage space has become infinitely cheaper.

Digital Storage Cost 1981 – 2012

·         1981 $300,000

·         1987 $50,000

·         1990 $10,000

·         1994 $1,000

·         1997 $100

·         2000 $10

·         2004 $1

·         2012 $0.10

As you can see, the price has significantly gone down since the early ’80s, and it’s easy to foresee that the price will continue to go down dramatically over the next few years. We can further deepen our knowledge about digital storage history by looking at an interesting infographic presented by Mashable (design by Mike Vasilev) called The History Of Digital Storage. We get to see where it all started, and how we have gone from room-sized paper munching machines to small and optimized pocket-sized flash drives. It’s an insane development that leaves high expectations for what’s to come in the future.

The next tier of digital storage is undoubtedly the cloud. Even though it is virtually limitless, it depends on what your allowed storage volume is. As digital storage space gets cheaper, it won’t be long until we are able to store whatever we want in the cloud, no matter what the size of it is. The question is, how safe is it? When companies start storing their stuff in the cloud, we all know what everyone is thinking. No system is 100% secure. So what keeps crackers from scraping these clouds for whatever they are looking for? I guess the future will tell whether we will be able to rely entirely on digital storage in the cloud, or if we will find yet another medium that we’ll adopt into our every day lives.

                 Digital Storage – Then & Now Infographic