Computer storage and media technology has evolved very rapidly during the past three decades and if history is any indicator, this evolution will continue at a frantic pace throughout this century.
CDs and DVDs are typically used to store data such as Microsoft office files, music, photos and videos and are ubiquitous today in every part of the world across families, businesses, governments, young and old, technologically savvy, and the neophytes alike.
However it is almost certain that CDs and DVDs will gradually become obsolete from 2010 to 2020.
This is because handheld and laptop devices which can quickly and elegantly download rich media content from the web have become so ubiquitous that it makes storage devices like CDs and DVDs almost redundant.
People want to carry less weight, prefer smaller form factor and now more storage capacity with smaller flash drives integrated in every hand held device such as smart phones, tablets and small laptops.
CDS and DVDs suffer from large clumsy form factor, can get scratched and damaged easily especially by females with long nails and might lose large portions of data if they are accidentally exposed to food, drinks, chemicals and other substances at home and work.
On the other hand flash storage whether it is tiny external USB flash drives which can hold more than 128 GB of data and rising, or internal flash based solid state hard drives which can hold 512 GB of data and rising, are becoming more commonplace. In essence, they are now the preferred way to store and enjoy data, music, movies and recorded moments such as birthdays, anniversaries, graduations and baby showers.
In future it is possible that both external and internal flash based solid state storage devices will completely replace CDs, DVDs and magnetic hard drives and offer large capacities ranging from a few Tera Bytes to even Peta bytes of memory.