The Evolution Of Archive Storage

As computer data backup is developing fast nowadays, it helps to know a bit about the history of backup technology. Growing necessity in backup was caused by development of computer technologies. The volume of data expanded and the need in archive storage appeared.

The History Of Archive Storage

The first archive storage backup was made onto big reels of magnetic tape or even paper. Then backups were stored on floppy disks of various sizes. Today our PC’s don’t have floppy drives anymore as archive storage is written on CDs, hard drives, flash drives or via network. But some technologies such as tape backups are still popular and continue to develop.

When the first generation of digital computing appeared, the vacuum tubes were used as the main logic element, with rotating magnetic drums used for internal storage of data, and programs and punch cards used to input and externally store data. So punch cards can be considered as the first archive storage backup device because additional copies of punch cards were made to restore data in case they were lost.

Punch cards have been used for over than 200 years even thought they are slow, low-capacity and require a lot of devices and time for processing. Punch cards were gradually replaced by magnetic tape. It was more efficient and stored as much data as 10 000 punch cards. It was very popular and the first backup traditions started to arise. It spread widely because of the tape drive’s reliability, scalability, and low cost, and is used even today.

Technology was improving rapidly and in 1956 the first hard drive was introduced. It became a standard component for most computers. Storing data on hard disks became an attractive and handy solution as multiple hard drives were used to share or replicate data among them. Today the "battle" between tape and disk backup still rages on.

In 1969 the first floppy disk was introduced which was considered as revolutionary media for transporting data from one computer to another. As floppy disks have low capacity, CD and CD-RW disks were introduced. In 1998 portable flash drives were invented which are new but already very popular. It is very small and stores more data than a traditional floppy disk or CD-ROM.

The New Generation Of Backup Media

Blue-laser discs using organic dyes are the next step to further reduce the cost of removable media. They appeared on the market in 2006 and are considered very promising for data backup. Further development of archive storage is closely connected to the evolution of networking.

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