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Punch cards
Punch cards were the first mechanical storage method. A punch card holds about 80 characters, so not even a fully fleshed out tweet could fit on one. -
Williams-Kilburn Tube
The Williams-Kilburn Tube, invented in 1947, featured the first fully electronic form of data storage nd stored data by displaying a grid of dots on cathode ray tubes, and sending a static charge through the tubes -
Compact Disc (CD)
The first highly portable optical storage. CDs had a capacity of 650 – 700 MB. That could hold 70,000 formatted .doc files, 140 minutes of low-resolution video, or, more appropriately, your favorite Radiohead album. -
Digital Video Disc (DVD)
The bigger, badder compact disc. The first DVD had 1.46 GB of storage, big enough to hold a short movie or 2 CDs. Some manufacturers make dual-sided, single-layer discs that can hold 9.4 GB of data. -
This high definition disc supported and stored 25 GB of high definition video at 1080p, which is around 36 CDs. Sony has cranked up optical disc storage to 3.3 terabytes today.
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Your data in the ether. Now, your storage capacity depends only on the plan you can pay for. The options are endless.
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Experts estimate that more than
2,700,000,000,000,000,000 KB
(2.7 zettabytes) of data exist in the digital universe today.