Computer storage has come a long way since the 1800s. Below is a comparison of the storage capacity of different computer media. There's some wiggle room with these capacities--for example, floppy disks initially had about half the listed amount of space, then it became possible to store information on both sides of the disk.
Comparison of storage solutions
Item |
Storage Capacity |
Percentage of total storage
capacity in this chart |
Needle Card/edge-notched card |
(estimated) 180 bits |
00.00000014% |
Punch card |
80 bytes |
00.0000006% |
8" Floppy Disk |
1.2 mb |
00.00902% |
5¼” Floppy Disk |
1.2 mb |
00.00541% |
3½” Floppy Disk |
1.44 mb |
00.0108% |
Zip Disk |
100mb |
00.752% |
CD-R |
700 mb |
05.26% |
USB Flash Drive
(the specific one on display)
|
4 GB |
30.1% |
DVD+R |
8.5 gb |
63.9% |
|
Total storage: |
13.3 GB |