If you remember just a few years ago you will remember how much a flash drive cost. I remember when 125mb was $25 and now you can get a 32GB thumb flash drive for that same price. People started storing data in books back thousands of years ago, now they store it in flash drive that can fit on your keychain.
From paper to current USB and other hard drive backups the data storage has come a long way. I have a 500 GB and a 2 TB backup that I use myself and I love them both.