The evolution of data storage

We're generating more data than ever before, but of course that means we need to have somewhere to store all of it.

Backup specialist Acronis has produced an infographic looking at how storage and backup has evolved.

The first hard drives were produced by IBM in the 1950s and Big Blue was also responsible for developing our old friend the floppy disk back in 1967.

Network attached storage appeared in 1989 and Amazon launched the first pay-to-use cloud storage service in 2006. Fast forward to 2025 when it's estimated that there will be 175 zettabytes (a zetabyte is a billion terabytes) of information stored worldwide, mostly on cloud services.

You can see the full graphic below.

Image credit: halk-44/depositphotos.com