How 1GB of data has changed over the years
How much space would you need in your home to store 10,000 documents? Forty years ago, the answer was enough room for a filing cabinet. Today a gigabyte of data takes up a lot less space.
1GB data =
- 1970s: A four-drawer filing cabinet
- 1980s: 736 floppy disks
- 1990s: 1½ CD-Rs
- 2000s: 1 USB flash drive
- 2010s: Cloud storage
Bulky filing cabinets have been replaced as new technologies have transformed how data is stored and used. But, as data has become more portable and the amount of space needed to store files has reduced, so has how easy it is to lose.
Data from the Information Commissioner Office reveals more organisations than ever are experiencing cyber security breaches that put people’s personal information at risk. Over 3,000 cyber breaches were reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office in 2023, with the finance, retail and education sectors reporting the most incidents.