Where is the data that is stored online actually stored?

Question

Is there like a mother of all hard drivers somewhere that stores everything?

or is the data just floating out in between the networks

Answer 1

The data is stored in data centers. These are effectively warehouses full of computers.



A company like Yahoo! will have tens of these faciities. Below are linked a news story about a Yahoo! data center and an image search for containerized data centers, which is the way the market is going.



http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=containerized+data+center

Answer 2

Its stored on servers. When you open a site, you are accessing someones computer/server, and that device is relaying the data contained on it over radio waves and that is interpreted by your computer into output you understand. The 'internet' is really just the URLs being managed and maintained so that when you type one in, your computer knows where to go, and the server knows where to send it.

Answer 3

basically large data centers which are just computers with hard drives of different types.



you could set a server up at home and use its hard drive or rent it out ( not recomended lol )



google facebook picture storage its amazing read.