From rock painting to the cloud: what's next?

No matter how much you read stories about the evolution in the field of information storage, in all there are different names and different facts. If you omit the details, then they all have a common one. From the beginning of the chronicle history, information was passed down from generation to generation with drawings on a stone, word of mouth, and finally, using paper. When paper was invented, backing up became much easier; it took less time than drawing an image on a stone, and messages stopped losing as easily as word of mouth, however, the paper is not eternal. In addition, in order to make a backup, someone had to copy the entire book, word for word.

This happened in the history of data storage hundreds of years before the invention of electricity, when a completely new approach to information storage was invented.

Punch cards that changed everything

In 1880, the United States conducted the 10th population census (the census should be held once every 10 years — this is recorded in the Constitution), but since the population is increasing too quickly, it took 8 years to collect data. According to forecasts, in 1890 the same procedure should have taken 13 years, which would mean that the country is carrying out the previous census when the turn of the new has come.

Then Herman Hollerith, an employee of the census bureau, began to find out what are the more effective ways to collect data. To solve this problem, he turned to old technology; punch cards that have been used for nearly 100 years in the French textile industry. Hollerith took advantage of this idea and created a simple machine that could read punch cards to write many different sets of data at the same time.
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When the punch card was placed in Hollerith's car, a series of needles were immersed in it. Each of these needles, which passed through perforated holes in punch cards, came into contact with the mercury base, which was under the card, which closed the electrical circuit. Each needle was connected to a meter that recorded and counted each needle passing through a perforated hole.

Photo source: disabilitymuseum.org

This made it possible to record and count various data sets much easier than before. Hollerith’s machine worked so well that he was able to collect data for the 1890 census in less than a year. Having achieved success, Hollerith founded the corporation International Business Machines - IBM.

Magnetic stripe that changed everything

While searching for census solutions, Hollerith also experimented with punched tapes that looked like punched cards only in roll form, but in the end it was found that such tapes were much more fragile than punched cards.

Forty years passed, and Fritz Pfleimer, a German engineer, took Hollerith’s idea of ​​a punched tape and finally made it work. Pfleimer covered the ribbon with an iron-oxide material, which allowed it to be strongly magnetized. He then used external magnetic charges to write data to the stripes; as with punched tape, magnetic charges could be read and written by the machine.

Photo source: regmedia.co.uk

One roll of magnetic tape allowed you to store as much data as 10,000 punch cards. It was also possible to re-record data on a magnetic tape, which made it possible to record new data sets on top of old ones. This was a revolution in data storage history. Soon, enterprises of all sizes and even some home users were able to back up data using magnetic tape.

However, the problem with the magnetic tape was in its design; the information had to be stored sequentially, which made it very time-consuming to search for specific information — it was necessary to search for the very place on the magnetic tape where exactly this information was recorded.

Floppy disks that changed everything

Pfleimer's idea with magnetic tapes was so amazing for that time that 40 years later IBM engineer Alan Shugart used it to create a floppy disk drive (FDD).

The idea was very similar to the idea of ​​a magnetic tape: the use of a magnetically charged material to write data, but the design of the diskette itself has changed. Unlike rolls of magnetic tape, floppy disks were flat. This meant that it was no longer necessary to store the data sequentially, and any data could be accessed instantly.

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Floppy disks are so firmly entrenched as an industry standard that their image is still a symbol of data storage and backup in computer systems. However, the demand for additional storage space continued to grow, and since floppy disks could only hold a few hundred kilobytes at best, it was time for another innovation.

Hard drives that changed everything

Hard drives actually existed back in 1956, when IBM introduced the 305 RAMAK. Such a disk was the size of two refrigerators and contained only 3.75 MB of data - it is clear why it did not become popular.

The basic principle of a hard disk is the same as that of a floppy disk; Data is recorded on thin magnetic surfaces. In fact, the only real difference between a floppy disk and a hard disk is that the hard disk contains its own read / write head, while floppy disks use computer heads.

With the development of technology, hard drives have become smaller and cheaper. Now they are everywhere, and there are disks of 6 TB each.

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The problem of the hard drive is that it is short-lived. Typical hard will not last longer than 10 years, and 50% of them will not live up to 6 years. Accordingly, for durable data storage would have to constantly rewrite the disks. With the invention of the Internet, a new era has come in the storage and backup of data.

Datacenters that have changed everything

In the 1980s and 1990s, the Internet's popularity increased dramatically. All businesses suddenly became fundamentally important to have constant access to the network. It was then that data centers appeared, which provided both data storage and a permanent presence on the Internet.

Data centers originated from a variety of hard drives connected to one system. Initially, only large companies could afford their own data centers, which put small business at a disadvantage.

So, for small businesses have been created online data centers . Placing was allowed for a business of any size without the need to build the entire infrastructure of its data center from scratch. It has become extremely beneficial to use such opportunities, and even without the need for maintenance and administration.

The cloud that changed everything

Private data centers soon paved the way for public data centers, which later became known as the cloud. The cloud allowed everyone to have a small piece of CL for safe and secure data storage. IT teams in the cloud are able to manage data centers for thousands of enterprises and people at the same time, which naturally reduces the cost of services for everyone.

However, in storing data from different customers in one place, there is also a problem: it is very important to find a cloud service provider who pays due attention to security. After all, the more people use the same security policies, the clearer the target for hackers.

What is there beyond the horizon?

The future of storing and backing up data is still shrouded in mist. Without innovations in the field of energy, we would still have kept the information on paper, and what would be the next global innovation - 5D flash drives or vague calculations - is impossible to predict. Whatever the innovations of the future, they should focus on processing more and more large data sets. As we already know, the trend line is directed towards big data, and its direction is unlikely to change in the near future. And what do you think - what is the future of data storage?