Cloud storage actually dates back to the reign of Queen Victoria

19th century book reveals first cloud storage reference - although possibly not what you’d expect

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We’ve been accustomed to using the term cloud storage to describe putting electronic files in the virtual hands of a third party, usually on a file server, but that was not always the case. Indeed, the large number of individuals and businesses that depend on being able to find thebest cloud storageis a fairly recent development, having only been around for about 20 years or so.

The combination of the words “cloud” and “storage” goes much further back in time. The earliest mention of Cloud Storage can be found in an 1896 book with a title that seems to come straight from theMarvelCinematic Universe,The Mystery of the White Snake: A Legend of Thunder Peak Tower. 1896 was the year the modern Olympic games were revived in Athens; it’sthat old.

The 34-page pamphlet, translated from the Chinese by Samuel L. Woodbridge, lists Cloud Storage on page 16. “Go to the Cloud Storage room, bring out one branch of the tree of life and give it to the White Snake”.

Cloud storage, 19th century style

So what does it refer to? Well, it is literally a place where physical clouds are stored.

Indeed, all recorded digitized content that mentions cloud storage in the 20th century refer to traditional clouds (cirrus, nimbus, stratocumulus and so on). It comes as no surprise that meteorologists and weather scientists used the term extensively (e.g. inMonthly Weather Review, a periodical from the American Meteorological Society).

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IDG’sComputerworldcame tantalizingly close to being the first to mention the term in an article looking at the future of storage.

InStorage 2001: Order from Chaos(August 17 1998), the author, Kevin Burden, clearly alludes to cloud storage, as a concept, without explicitly naming it. “Vendors say to think of SAN (Storage Area Network), as a cloud” before adding “the cloud analogy may be appropriate because right now the SAN isn’t much more than a concept”.

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A concept it remained for far too long and it took another eight years forAmazonto debut the first true public cloud storage,S3 (Simple Storage Service), and the rest is history.

Désiré has been musing and writing about technology during a career spanning four decades. He dabbled inwebsite buildersandweb hostingwhen DHTML and frames were in vogue and started narrating about the impact of technology on society just before the start of the Y2K hysteria at the turn of the last millennium.

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