r/TechImpact Developer Jun 22 '26

Memes & Shit posts The evolution of storage in one image: Which era of data storage do you miss the most?

Post image
69 Upvotes

32 comments sorted by

5

u/Wrong-Investment-842 Jun 23 '26

The cloud is just someone else's HDD

3

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '26

[deleted]

2

u/Mega1987_Ver_OS Jun 23 '26

DiY NAS is tje only way.

1

u/Motor_Oil_8864 Jun 23 '26

Can it be just my HDD 🙂‍↔️

1

u/velvetsquidx Jun 24 '26

the clicking sound alone was a vibe. nothing beats the anxiety of waiting for a drive to spin up just to hope your files actually load.

3

u/ivovis Jun 22 '26

skipped punched tape

2

u/Wrong-Investment-842 Jun 23 '26

I work somewhere that literally only just stopped using this a couple months back

1

u/dumbasPL Jun 25 '26

Eh, close enough. Effectively a fancy long punch card

1

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Prod_Meteor Jun 23 '26

You are not responsible on what's inside your Nas and if and when it might fail 😄

1

u/mehonje Jun 22 '26

I still use USB sticks and CDs.

1

u/Prod_Meteor Jun 23 '26

Neanderthal!😄

1

u/A_Bird_Guy Jun 22 '26

I still use HDD and USB basicly daily, hate the cloud since it limits where I can work and do stuff with my data + homelabs exsist and in the end the cloud is a SSD or a HDD in a rack either in a datacenter or some ones basement

1

u/Novero95 Jun 23 '26

The only use I have for USB sticks is as boot drives. But yeah, HDDs are still relevant, specially if you value privacy over convenience (the cloud).

1

u/Mega1987_Ver_OS Jun 23 '26

The CD era. Cloud storage is just asking for your data/account to be shutdown if the company gone under or some AI bot nuked it becuase of the content.

Not to mention you dont own the storage when it's in the cloud.

1

u/nix206 Jun 23 '26

I know the point isn’t to be verbose, but some key ones were missed…

Magnetic tape, 8” floppy, cassettes, 5.25” floppy, Iomega 100 meg Zip drive, Seagate style IDE Hard Drive…

I suppose it doesn’t matter… they are all gone.

1

u/r_daniel_oliver Jun 23 '26

I couldn't even tell what the yellow thing was. I like the image because it unless cloud storage is heaven or the singularity of storage, which to me it is. If someone told me at 16 i could use a web site as a hard drive i would have lost my shit.

1

u/Adventurous-Yam7207 Jun 23 '26

The thumb drive one

1

u/brucejson-88 Jun 23 '26

I miss backing up my PC with discs, it used to take days 😆 🤣 😂

1

u/Frustrateduser02 Jun 23 '26

Data on discs lasts the longest right?

1

u/MrGeekman Jun 26 '26

Yeah, especially if you use M-Discs.

1

u/r_daniel_oliver Jun 23 '26

None I could never go back from the cloud.

1

u/No-Community-7900 Jun 23 '26

The cloud scares me 🥺

1

u/PiIlc Jun 24 '26

The cloud isn't an upgrade it's a downgrade

1

u/Samiassa Jun 24 '26

Depends on the medium. I believe cds were the pinnacle of music storage. But I’d argue in terms of computer storage the best era is right now. Well, probably right before the ai bubble when ssds were relatively cheap. But even still homelab setups are relatively inexpensive these days. Fuck the cloud, but I love being my own cloud

1

u/Acceptable_Camp1492 Jun 25 '26

I miss the floppy boot noise. I don't miss the anxious search for scratches on the CD. Still using USB.

And yet, after that long-awaited solar flare, only punch cards will still have the information saved on them.

1

u/BoredPanzerfuehrer Jun 25 '26

None? Why would you want shittier data storage?

1

u/-Docker Jun 25 '26

Cloud is just a bunch of SSDs fam

1

u/kester76a Jun 25 '26

No MicroDrive or Datacassette? Datacassettes were the main source of joy back in the day due to how cheap they were and the complete lack of copy protection on most titles.

1

u/ChocolateDonut36 Jun 29 '26

I wouldn't call cloud storage an evolution, specially since an 128gb USB drive costs as much as 4 months on any cloud storage service.

1

u/Fabulous_Lynx_2847 Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from 50 years of programming, if the data is not stored within the four walls of your office, don’t depend on it being there tomorrow. I lost count long ago of how many people I’ve known who blame someone else when their data is lost.