It’s amazing how technology changes things. When I was in college, you would save your files on a 3.5 inch floppy disk. Just a few short years later, these disk drives were obsolete and everything was saved on CDs. Fast forward to today and most computers you buy don’t have either of these drives. Just USB ports. So how do you save and backup your files? Enter data storage companies.

There are many data storage companies out there and they all offer something different. Some offer cloud backups while others produce hard disk and solid state drives to save and back up your files.

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But with so many out there, which ones are the best of breed and worth your investment money? In this post, I will highlight 3 data storage companies that you can invest your money in confidently, knowing they are solid companies that will earn you a profit.

So what are these 3 data storage companies? Keep reading to find out!

3 Hot Data Storage Companies To Invest In

#1. Carbonite (Nasdaq: CARB)

You are probably familiar with Carbonite by now, seeing as they have been spending money on clever advertising campaigns for years now.

The company offers a cloud backup service for individuals and small and medium sized businesses. This is a good segment to be in as many data storage companies target larger size businesses.

For 5 straight quarters, Carbonite has achieved double digit sales growth, which has been reflected by its share price more than doubling over the past year. But don’t let this make you think you missed the boat on Carbonite.

Analysts are expecting revenue to rise 17% in 2017 and 10% next year. Estimates for earnings look just as good, with expected growth of 28% in 2017 and 29% in 2018. Granted some of this growth is attributed to the purchase of EVault, but Carbonite has been good at cutting costs at the same time.

Going forward, the growth for Carbonite should continue. It might slow a little from its current level, but there is nothing to hold it back.

#2. Five9 (Nasdaq: FIVN)

Next on the list is Five9. While Carbonite focuses on individuals and businesses, Five9 focuses strictly on contact centers with their cloud offerings. They currently offer software products including workforce management, speech recognition, predictive dialer, and voice applications, as well as an all-in-one contact center cloud platform.

When it comes to earnings, you might pause for a second when you see that Five9 has been losing money. But in the early stages of a company, losing money is part of the game. The good news is that Five9 consistently beats estimates and is starting to turn the corner to profitability.

In its most recent earnings release, earnings came in at $0.00 which beat estimates by $0.04. Revenues hit $47 million, which were an increase of 24% and beat estimates by over $2 million.

The future is bright for Five9. They are working hard towards the path of profitability and if they can continue to grow faster than analysts estimate, there will be some surprises in the coming quarters for the company and its stock.

#3. Western Digital (Nasdaq: WDC)

Western Digital has been around for years as a hard disk drive company. Their drives are always rated highly, but the problem is that technology is slowing making the hard disk drive obsolete.

While Western Digital could milk this business for all its worth before moving on like others in this space, they have decided to be proactive and grow the company while still enjoying revenue from the hard disk drive side of the business.

Where Western Digital has been focusing its attention is with solid state drives and flash memory. And instead of growing these businesses from the ground up, Western Digital has decided to buy other companies. Some of the names it has recently bought include

• SanDisk
• Virident
• Amplidata
• Skyera
• STEC
• VeloBit
• Hitachi

The success of these acquisitions has been nothing short of tremendous for the company. They have reported 3 straight quarters of double digit sales growth and show no signs of slowing down. Analysts expect revenue for 2017 to rise 47% and earnings to rise 74%. For 2018, they expect earnings to rise another 34%.

The stock has been on a rise over the past year but is still cheap compared to where earnings are expected to take the stock. Now is a great time to jump on board Western Digital.

Final Thoughts

There you have 3 options to invest your money when it comes to data storage companies. Each one offers just a little bit different product and service. You can make the decision with which one makes the most sense for your portfolio.

Just know that with technology changing how we do things, these 3 companies should be around for a long time as they all have been good at staying ahead of technology and not becoming obsolete like the floppy drives of the past.