I have been teaching a lot of storage courses over the past few years, along with courses on Security and Business Continuance.  I figured it was about time to put together a brief history of storage.

Did you know that the oldest known form of data storage dates back to 1725 when Basile Bouchon used a perforated paper loop to store patterns that were to be used on a loom to manage the repetitive tasks of weaving cloth?

Or that the first real patent for some kind of data storage however dates back to 23 Sep 1884 by Herman Hollerith for an invention that was used for nearly 100 years until the mid 1970s in order to gather an compile statistics?

When I first learned how to program a computer way back when, it was with punch cards like these 90 column things.   Remember those?

But I remember paper tape as well.... especially from ticker tape machines.  (Gosh, I must be old!  )

For a fun look at the history of storage - at least in the modern computer era - check out this site, which did a far better job than I could have based on my research.  And I also came across this site which had a good chronology of some of the key dates of the history of the hard disc.  Finally, you may want to check out Wikipedia for additional references on computer storage and data storage devices - although it looks like they are trying to clean up the section.