1846 - The first known use of paper tape by Alexander Bain, the inventor of the fax machine and the electric printing telegraph. Each row on the tape represented one character, but since you could easily create a fanfold, you could store significantly more data using the punched tape compared to the punch cards.
1884 - Punch cards are patented by Herman Hollerith.
1898 - The Telegraphone, the first practical apparatus for magnetic sound recording and reproduction, is patented by Danish telephone engineer and inventor Valdemar Poulsen.
1928 - Magnetic tape is first patented by the German engineer Fritz Pfleumer, based on the invention of the magnetic wire by Poulsen in 1898.
1932 - The magnetic drum is invented by G Taushek in Austria. Taushek put a ferromagnetic layer on the outside of a metal drum. Read and write heads were mounted at a distance of some micrometres that produced an electro-magnetic pulse.
1932 - AEG began manufacturing the Magnetophon while BASF produced the tapes used with the machines. The first public recording using the AEG Magnetophon was made on 19 November 1936, with the London Philharmonic orchestra conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham at BASF's own concert hall in Ludwigshaven.
1946 - RCA starts the development of the selectron tube, an early form of computer memory. The largest selectron tube measured 10 inches and could store 4 096 bits.
1950s - Magnetic tape is first used by IBM to store data. Since one roll of magnetic tape could store as much data as 10 000 punch cards, it is an instant success and becomes the most popular way of storing computer data until the mid 1980s.
1951 - IBM computers use oxide-coated tape similar to that used in audio recording. Magnetic tape is half an inch wide and wound on removable reels 10.5 inches in diameter. Different lengths are available, with 2 400 feet and 4 800 feet being common.
1956 - IBM unveils the 305 RAMAC, the world's first hard drive. The computer could store up to 4.4MB of data. The data was stored on fifty 24-inch magnetic disks.
1958 - Laserdisk technology is invented.
1963 - Philips introduces the compact cassette. Computers like the ZX Spectrum, the Commodore 64 and the Amstrad CPC use the cassettes to store data. A standard 90-minute compact cassette could store around 700kB to 1MB of data on each side.
1965 - Punch cards and tape are the most common storage technologies.
1966 - The first random access, the Univac Fastrand drum, is introduced. This is made into a concrete cylinder with a steel jacket 12 feet long, two feet wide, and five feet tall.
1967 - IBM starts developing a simple and inexpensive system for loading microcode into its System/370 mainframes. It should be faster and more purpose built than the tape drives, that could also be used to send out updates to customers for $5.
1968 - The invention of the COBLIB tape source library and BASIS decks.
1969 - The first floppy disc is introduced. It is a read-only, 8-inch disc that can store 80kB of data. Four years later, a similar floppy disc with the same size would store 256kB of data and it would be possible to write new data again and again.
1970 - IBM introduces System/370, the first of its architectures to use virtual storage and address spaces.
1970 - Bubble Memory is invented by Andrew Bobeck. His earlier development of magnetic core memory and the development of the twistor memory put him in a good position for the development of Bubble Memory, a stationary disc with spinning bits that contains a thin film magnetic recording layer. Globular-shaped bubbles (bits) are electromagnetically generated in circular strings inside this layer. In order to read or write the bubbles, they are rotated past the equivalent of a read/write head.
1971 - The first memory disc, called the floppy disc, is invented by Alan Shugart at IBM. It is considered a revolutionary device for transporting data from one computer to another.
1972 - The first videodisc is demonstrated in public. It isn't possible to store data on the discs, but video and image data can be stored with a significantly higher quality than techniques like VHS.
1972 - The 2311/2314 disc is introduced because of the need to increase capacity. Disc space is managed by "hand".
1978 - The 3350-not removable is in the beta stage.
1979 - The compact disc is developed in co-operation between Sony and Philips.
1981 - The SCSI standard evolves from the Shugart Associates Systems Interface (SASI), a name that implies a proprietary technology. Shugart teams with NCR to standardise the interface. SCSI was standardised by ANSI in 1986. SCSI is a parallel interface designed for connecting disc drives, in contrast to the Serial ATA, which made its way into enterprise storage in 2002.
1982 - The compact disc becomes freely available on the market.
1987 - The world's first network-attached storage company, Auspex Systems, is founded.
1988 - M-Systems, now SanDisk, does the work on the first USB flash drive, paving the way for later creations such as Apple's iPods in 2001.
1989 - The Fibre Channel specification is introduced by Joe Mathis, a member of the technical staff at IBM. The protocol is used to link servers and storage together into a shared network. Fibre Channel storage-area networks will become popular in 1999.
1999 - The Serial ATA interface debuts. This interface, which followed the parallel ATA interface, is a shoo-in for less expensive drives.
2000 - FalconStor Software is founded. The company would later become an important enabler for white box storage OEMs entering the virtual tape market.
2003 - The first recorded occurrence of the term VTL (virtual tape library) appears in a joint news story by MTI Technology and Quantum.
2003 - The first blue-laser based disc, the Blue-ray disc, is released.
2004 - Peripheral Concepts publishes the results of its market research into backup practices and plans in over 1 000 major IT sites. The report says: "The population using disc in backup has grown to 62%, and is forecast to reach 76% penetration by 2005."
2007 - InPhase Technologies ships the industry's first holographic storage disc. The Tapestry HDS-300R drive contains 300GB platters that sell for $180. The company claims the capacity of its drives will be 1.6TB by 2010.
Sources: The History and Development of the Internet: a Timeline, Rhonda Davila. A Brief History of the Internet, Barry M Leiner, Vinton G Cerf, David D Clark, Robert E Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock, Daniel C Lynch, Jon Postel, Larry G Roberts, Stephen Wolff. Wikipedia. Keith Lynch's timeline of Net-related terms and concepts. Hobbes' Internet Timeline. Ezine. IBM. Storage search. Network World. How Stuff Works.
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