“Transfer your files to the Cloud, where storage space is virtually unlimited.” “We’ll give you limitless data storage if you sign up with Data Provider Z.” Are these boasts of endless storage true? The volume of data that people produce is something we hear about all the time. Where does everything go? Should we be concerned that datacenters will soon run out of storage?
The idea of limitless storage is still difficult for people to comprehend. Physical space is limited; even the largest library can only hold a certain number of books. Not too long ago, having enough storage on our computers was a serious concern. Running out of space on our smartphones and tablets continues to be an issue for the majority of us. How then can cloud service providers supply limitless storage? What transpires if the supply runs out?
An Inside Look at a Cloud Datacenter
A datacenter is really nothing more than a group of servers. Servers are merely computers with the primary purpose of storing data. Warehouse-like in scale, very large datacenters can hold tens of thousands or even millions of servers.
However, not every server in a datacenter keeps exclusive information. Datacenters use the notion of redundancy to guarantee that information is safe and accessible 99.99 percent of the time. This indicates that they maintain several copies of the same data on many servers. For optimum redundancy, some of the biggest Cloud service providers, like Amazon, could save the same data in two different geographical locations.
So, you’re very close if you picture a datacenter as a long row of computers that are built with storage for a lot of data. Since the cost of data storage solutions has significantly declined in recent years, cloud storage providers can afford to give their clients almost unlimited capacity. But how long will this situation persist?
Are Digital Storage Wars About to Begin
There’s no real reason to be concerned about running out of Cloud storage right now. The whole human population had generated 64.2 zettabytes of data by the year 2020. It is predicted that mankind will have generated 181 zettabytes of data by 2025. [Statista, source]
That is certainly a lot of data. However, a high-tier datacenter measuring around 980,000 square feet may accommodate up to 2.6 million servers, claims Rack Solutions. Research indicates that the huge data storage facilities maintained by companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are not operating at full capacity. We’re not even close to a worldwide data storage catastrophe yet when you factor in the millions of smaller datacenters that are spread out throughout the globe.
Future Data Storage and Research
We may soon run out of storage space for data if global data creation rises as predicted and our data storage technology remains unchanged. However, even a quick review of the past ten years’ worth of advancements should demonstrate that data storage technology is not at a standstill.
One recent change in data storage was the switch from conventional hard drives (HDDs) to solid state drives (SSDs), which are quicker, more compact, and more effective. Some organizations are looking into the potential of employing atoms or DNA as eventual data storage solutions as part of ongoing research into data storage technologies. In adjacent fields like data transfer rates, storage performance and efficiency, and server power consumption, advancements are also occurring. This could increase the effectiveness of uploading, downloading, accessing, and storing data.
Therefore, it is sense to believe that as the amount of data we produce increases, so will the need for larger and better storage solutions, which will be met by ongoing advancements.
Will Storage Space in Datacenters Ever Run Out
We’ll state the obvious and say that datacenters won’t run out of storage anytime soon. Furthermore, it’s doubtful that a shortage of data storage will arise anytime soon. Although physical space is a limitation, the world’s current data storage capacity has not reached its limit. Our data storage systems appear to only be going to get more effective and reliable over time as new storage technologies emerge.
