The Storage Imperative
Humanity’s accumulated knowledge would fill 10 billion Blu-ray discs today versus just 50GB equivalent in 1980 – demanding constant storage innovation.
Technological Epochs
Mechanical Memory (1800-1940)
Jacquard’s loom punch cards stored 1KB/m³, with read speeds of 12 cards/minute.
Tabulating Machines
Hollerith’s 1890 census system processed 60 cards/minute – the birth of enterprise data.
Cultural Impacts
Library card catalogs standardized information retrieval before computers existed.
Microfilm Dreams
Encyclopedia Britannica predicted all books would be miniaturized onto reels by 1950.
Magnetic Revolution (1950-1990)
IBM’s RAMAC 305 stored 5MB on fifty 24-inch disks weighing a ton.
Cassette Paradox
Home users stored programs on audio tapes despite 1200bps transfer rates.
Floppy Dominance
The 1.44MB diskette became ubiquitous despite constant data corruption issues.
Mainframe Culture
Corporate data centers required climate-controlled rooms for tape robot systems.
Solid State Era (2000-)
NAND flash enabled smartphones that store more than 1990s supercomputers.
3D NAND
Modern chips stack 176 memory layers vertically like microscopic skyscrapers.
Cold Storage
Facebook’s Arctic data center uses 1EB of Blu-ray discs for archival data.
Molecular Future
Microsoft’s DNA storage prototype writes 1EB/mm³ using synthetic biology.