The devices used in computers to store digital information, data, and instruction. We called these devices storage media devices of the computer.
The data is store for future use. From these storage devices, you can access data at any time. We will discuss the history of storage media devices of computers in this blog.
Computer memory has the same definition. Because there is a minor difference between these two. In the next blog.
We will discuss the difference between computer memory and storage media devices in a future blog.
Here our motive is to discuss the history of storage devices. We want to know that the storage devices like cloud storage exist in history or not.
Table of Contents
Punch Cards
In the 1890s, before the invention of the computer. The Punch cards use for the digital representation of data. Herman Hollerith was the man who was to invent punch cards, which use for data processing.
Punch cards have the ability to store data and after that data scan by the machine. It is used in the data processing industry since the years of 20th century.
Punch cards hold about 80 characters and 0.008kb storage of data. They are also used with vacuum tubes and integrated circuit computers.
But after the revolution of magnetic memory. The usage of punch cards was decreasing.
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Magnetic Drum
In 1932s, a drum memory of magnetic data storage invents by Gustav Tauschek in Austria. The storage of this device was 48kb.
The magnetic drum memory use by the US Navy during World War II. It displaces primary computer memory.
Drum memory is the main working memory of the computer. It is common memory that uses in those days. Drum memory is low cost, high speed, and balance size.
Magnetic Tape Drive
The magnetic tape drive was developed in 1928 in Germany. It is made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film.
Initially, the storage of magnetic tape drum is 231kb. It can store 10 pdf or 23 formatted document files.
Hard Disk Drive
The hard disk drive is the full form of HDD. Engineers of IBM invented the hard disk drive in 1953. It is also known as a secondary storage device.
It is less expensive. HDD is slower than drum memory but faster and more expensive than tape drive memory in the computer.
HDD’s commercial use in 1957. First HHD has enough storage space to hold a whole mp3 file.
Floppy Disk
The first-time floppy disk was introduced in 1967. Commercially it was introduced in 1972 in 8-inch format. It was developed by IBM’s JOSE laboratory.
It was enough to save 8 formatted document files. Before the invention of USB flash drives and memory cards, they remained popular for more than 40 years.
Compact Disk
Initially, a compact disc (CD) was developed for audio storage. The digital audio compact disc was released in 1982. CD was developed by both Philips and Sony.
In the beginning, it’s working to store digital audio recordings and play them. The storage, in the beginning, was 700MB, which means we can store 80 minutes of audio in it.
Digital Video Disk
Digital video disk (DVD) is also known as a digital versatile disk. It was also developed by both Sony and Philips in 1995 and released in 1996.
Initially, its capacity to store data is from 4 GB to 17 GB that depends on the side or layer of the DVD. In comparison to CD, we can store any digital data in it and also high capacity.
This means it is big enough to store two movies and equal to two CD’s data. In DVD we can only read data but cannot be erased or write it.
SD Cards
SD cards are types of memory cards. A memory card is used as flash memory to store digital information. So the advanced shape of memory cards is SD cards.
SD cards were developed in 1999 by the efforts of San Disk, Panasonic, and Toshiba. Different kinds of SD cards including SDHC, SDXC, and SDUC.
So, the capacity will also be different. Its capacity is from 2 GB to 2 TB.
USB Flash Drives
The small device is removed able and rewriteable. It was invent in 1980s, by Fujio Masuoka.
Some say that a USB flash drive was developed by an Israeli company name M-system. The first flash drive can hold 90 seconds of low-resolution video.
It is simply a data storage device. The capacity of the flash drive is from 8 GB to 216 GB.
It is often used for storage, data backup, and for transferring files from one node to another. Node means computer.
It is faster and stores data more than optical devices.
Cloud Data storage
In present days, the concept of cloud storage or cloud computing is carried in the market. Actually, it is an advanced shape of digital data storage medium.
The servers working as a cloud which is managed by hosting companies. We will pay for online cloud storage then it is in our access.
So we store our data on that servers. We will access our data any time or anywhere in the world.
Cloud data storage gives us fast service to easily access our data. These servers or hosting are responsible to secure our data.
We can pay annually for hosting and are easy to work by using our data anytime from anywhere.
Conclusion of history of storage media devices
In the previous, we see the history of storage media devices of computers. Some are still in use or some end.
There is more or less energy consumed in using these different data storage. It is slow and time is taken process. Looks difficult to carrying these devices and secure them.
Cloud storage safe our important time. It is fast data storage and easily accesses able. It is secure data storage.
So this is complete data storage medium history. Actually, I want to write about data storage mediums.
But when I see the history, it looks difficult, to sum up, both history and about the storage devices. You can read more about the history of storage media devices from here.
You can also know about the Introduction to computers and the components of computers and more from our previous blog posts.
It is also difficult to read for readers. So, I divide it into two articles. Today we cover the history of data storage devices.
In the next article, we will cover complete detail. Like primary, secondary, and tertiary storage devices and more in detail.
