The History of Portable Storage Devices

Punched Card

Jul 1, 1725

For more information about the punched card: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card
The punch card was basically a pre-historic memory card. It was first used in textile factories to control looms. With the holes that were punched in specific spots, the machine was told what patterns to create.

The Hollerith Punch Card

Nov 1, 1890

This machine made processing the punched card faster and easier. The card contained digital information represented with the presence/absence of holes in certain postitions. It was first used in the US during the 1890 elections.

Punch Tape

Jul 1, 1937

For Information, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_tape
Punched tape was an extension/improvement of the punched card. It was widely used throughout the 20th century.

Drum Memory

Sep 1, 1950

Drum Memory The drum memory was a magnetic data storage device used frequently with punched card or tape. Although created in 1932, it was not used widely until the 1950s.

The Floppy Disk

Nov 8, 1969

The first floppy drives manufactured were 8 inches in diameter and could hold 79.7kb of information.

Cassette Tape

Oct 1, 1972

The cassette tape was a magnetic audio tape that a could hold 660kB of storage per side. It was the easiest, cheapest way to store data until the floppy disk became more accessible and less expensive.

The 5.25' and 3.5' Floppy Drive

Jan 1, 1976

5.25 inch floppy disks were one-sided and had a capacity of 360 kB. They were used mainly by private users, until replaced by the by the 3.5 inch floppy disk, which had a capacity of 1.44 mB.

Compact Disk (CD)

Mar 1, 1979

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/CD-R
The CD was first produced by Sony and Philips. It could hold up to 700MB of audio and other data.

CD-R

May 2, 1990

This format is still used. It's 700 MB storage capacity, high quality, and low price helped it surpass the floppy and survive the rise of the Zip and Jaz discs.

Zip Drives (disks)

Aug 27, 1994

Zip Discs
Zip drives, also called zip disks, are a removable storage disk introduced by Iomega. The original disks had a 100MB capacity, but later versions had 250MB and 750MB. These devices were ideal for large documents and design files. However, they were quickly replaced by floppy discs and were favored over CD-Rs because they were re-writable.

Jaz Disks

Jun 1, 1995

Jaz Disks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzb8eZtBhtk&feature=relatedhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iomega_Jaz_drive
Jaz Disks were a removable hard disk device introduced by Iomega. They are now obsolete. They had a 1 GB capacity and were mainly used by home users.

USB Flashdrive

Jan 1, 2000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvv_6Mrs1PU
The first flashdrives to be sold commercially had an amazing 8MB of storage space. This was more then five times the amount a floppy disk could hold.

SD Cards

Aug 1, 2000

SD cards are a portable memory card originally produced by SanDisk and Toshiba. They can hold up to 32 MB of storage. When introduced, it gained popularity in handheld devices. They are thin as quarters, and have evolved to no longer be restricted by the physical size of the device.

Cloud Storage

Apr 1, 2011

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_storage
Cloud storage is online storage. With online services, consumers can access limitless storage from any Internet connected device.