The first home computers came on the market in the late 1970s. They started with 8 kilobytes of internal storage that ran the software. When you wanted to store data, you used the SAVE command and the data was recorded on cassette tape. In theory, you could store quite a lot of data on cassette tape, but that was risky since the tape frequently made errors and you could lose all or part of a dataset very easily. The software used a command structure to read the data from the tape. The process sometimes took hours because the rate of transmission was painfully slow.
Floppy Disk Storage
Floppy disk storage was a godsend in the early 1980s, with 8-inch floppy disks storing 720 kilobytes of data. Then came the 5.25-inch floppy enclosed in its elegant plastic case and storing more than a megabyte (1.44 megabytes or more). The megabyte threshold was like a miracle to users accustomed to tiny micro software and limited data streams.
The early 8-bit chip-based computers gradually upgraded their internal storage to a maximum of 64 kilobytes by the time the 8088 chip-based PC came in. Computer pioneers were amazed at what they could do with 64 kilobytes.
Hard Drives
Hard drives were introduced to the PC marketplace by the 1980s. Storage on these early PC drives was under 50 megabytes, but it seemed endless capacity then.
In the 1990s, the gigabyte range of storage capacity was considered outrageously vast. However, the demands of Windows and the highly visual operating systems that entered the marketplace was requiring it. By the year 2000, the first chips to break the gigahertz threshold came onto the market. It was like the first time the sound barrier was broken. However, the software demanded high operating speeds and more and more massive data storage. The first computer DVD drives holding up to 15 gigabytes of data followed in the early 2000s.
However, the rigidity of DVD storage for regular use in continuously updating systems soon became evident. Flash drives and solid state data storage holding as much as DVDs, and much more flexibly usable entered the market over the last several years. Storage technology is quickly evolving, but the idea of storing really big data on in-house computer systems has quickly reached its limit.
What is the Alternative?
The only real alternative at present is a storage solution for updatable data on many hard drives. In-house storage systems requiring many hard drives on many servers can be very expensive and can require increased security risks and high overhead for maintenance. That is what cloud storage systems offer–the potential for unlimited data storage on secure servers off site, where all maintenance and backup functions are performed by experts.
If your goal is to save money and make your data secure, please visit Clarus Communications here or call us at 855-801-6700 to speak with one of our knowledgeable staff. We would be happy to offer a range of cloud data solutions that could handle any data storage solution for you and your company.
Clarus Communications is the 2015 winner of the Channel Partner 360 Business Value Award.