Evolution of Data Storage
Over time, methods of storing data have evolved. The reason data storage devices evolved was to accommodate the increasing amount of information that needed to be stored due to the cultural trend of people basing identities on images, music, and movies, especially on social media. This evolution increased the amount of information that could be stored, and decreased the amount of space needed to store the files, which was important as sustainability and saving money became a focus in popular culture. The less space needed to store information means less resources are used, saving both time and money. The earliest form of information storage was punch cards, which were not efficient, and took up a great deal of space. A series of inventions including magnetic tape, cassette tapes, floppy disks, SSDs, the cloud, and more occurred in data storage, making data storage accessible to the average person. This shift was important; the average person, instead of big businesses, was generating increased amounts of data, especially as computers gained input devises like the keyboard, camera, videotaper, and audio recorder, exponentially increasing the amount of data an average person could generate.
This trend towards data storage being accessible to the average person would continue for the rest of the evolution of file storage. For example, computers were only used by workplaces for professional information management; however, computers “ quickly revolutionized things such as school homework, shopping, and, more recently, working from home” (
How Did Computers Change the World? The Rise of IT & Computer Support in Business, M and H Consulting). As information storage changed from being accessible only to businesses to being accessible to the average consumer, the amount of data increased exponentially. As a direct result, demand for more efficient information storage increased, leading to data storage evolving.
Furthermore, data has evolved from structured formats to unstructured formats over time. Initially, the files that were stored were structural and organized. In contrast, most modern information storage is “unstructured—coming from sources like emails, social media, videos, images, and web pages” (
Evolution Of Big Data In Modern Technology, Janet Williams). These take up more space, which caused data storage to evolve to be able to store more information.
Cloud Storage
Cloud storage is a type of data storage that enables information to be stored on servers in off-site locations via a computing provider that maintains the servers, ensuring the data is always accessible through the internet. The ‘cloud’ is a slang term used by the tech industry. In the early development and use of the internet, the technical industry used diagrams representing the internet, consisting of servers and networking infrastructure. These diagrams represented the internet as a cloud, and over time the term ‘cloud’ became slang for where the internet’s computing processes were taking place. Cloud storage has many advantages. Firstly, cloud storage saves money. Since cloud storage enables files to be stored off-site, users do not need to purchase any hardware. Furthermore, cloud storage provides ease of access to data. Users can access information stored in cloud storage on any device with an internet connection, so no matter where a user travels, the ability to access files is constant. Lastly, cloud storage is convenient. Users of cloud storage merely need a device connected to the internet to access information, “instead of having to back up your data on physical storage devices like USB drives or external hard drives, saving your data to the cloud lets you access your files whenever you need them without extra accessories” (
Cloud Storage Benefits, Windows Learning Center).
3-2-1 Backup Plan
The 3-2-1 Backup Plan is a general strategy for keeping data safe, and outlines that a user should have three copies of data, on two different types of media, and at least one of those copies should be off-site. Archival copies are commonly confused with backup copies. Backup copies are synced automatically, so the most recent version of the files are readily available. Backup copies are primarily used for data recovery if something happens to the original copy. In contrast, archival copies are used for the storage of data that is no longer in use or accessed often, often for historical purposes. For example, archived data has legal applications, as archived information can help “organizations comply with court orders requiring the retention of communications, documents, and other work-related materials” (
4 MSP Compliance and Legal Considerations Around Archiving, DropSuite). Automatic syncing ensures that the data stored on backups is the latest version; if something happens to the original copy, all of the changes made will be saved on the backup. However, if the backup is not automatically synced, huge chunks of changes to files might never be recovered. A possible backup plan for a Trinity student's assignments, notes, and research, would be to have one copy on a laptop, another copy automatically syncing to an external hard drive, and another copy automatically syncing to the cloud. Then there would be three copies, on two different types of media, and one one copy would be offsite in the cloud.
