Wednesday, July 19, 2017

What is the origin / meaning of the icon used for "database"?



I've never really understood what this icon, that looks like an oil drum


Database icon, from The Noun Project


and is commonly used to refer to a database, is actually supposed to represent.


What is it?


As a matter of fact, I've been searching for any kind of reading material about the history of the symbols commonly used in web app icons and haven't come up with anything helpful or interesting. Is there a good resource to read up on that?



Answer



It represents a stack of hard disks. For example, from wikipedia:


"RAID diagram icon symbolizing the array of disks"


enter image description here


Yes, this is talking about hard disks but the basic concept is the same.



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