Did you know that the demand for data storage is now so high that ordinary people can rent out part of their unused hard drive space and earn money for doing so?
It has recently been reported that the cloud storage market is expected to grow to $88.91 billion by 2022, and in the past 10 years data store in NERSC (National Energy Research Scientific Computing Centre) has grown at an annual rate of 30%, showing a real indication that the data storage industry is rapidly turning into a hot investment opportunity.
Why?
This is happening because of the developments in technologies, camera qualities, file sizes growing, and high performance computing needs. It is the digital demand for new, stronger, bigger, better, and faster technologies, which collectively need high performance data storage.
So what do we mean by storage?
Companies like Google Drive, DropBox, Amazon, Apple iCloud all offer data storage solutions, and then there’s new comers Blockchain, Storj, File Coin, and Sia who operate as marketplaces for data storage – put simply act as a brokers for people who need storage and people who have excess storage, meaning normal people with unused hard drive space can earn money from holding encrypted files for companies and individuals.
This all might sound quite confusing, however, the main point to consider is that this means there is always going to be a cost associated to accessing data storage. Whether it be a monthly fee from a centralised player or transaction fees associated with retrieving your data from the space you are virtually renting.
As the demand for data storage keeps growing, the need for a low-cost data storage protocol that can be scaled is a necessity. Companies who are creating data storage, which is secure from the threat of losing your data and hackers.