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The world could run out of computer space by 2020, a leading data storage company has warned.

Seagate said we are facing a data capacity deficit of more than six zettabytes - nearly twice the data produced in 2013.

Mark Whitby, the company's vice president for branded products, said that there was 'stratospheric demand' for computers and that the industry has simply not kept up.

Seagate said we are facing a data capacity deficit of more than six zettabytes - nearly twice the data produced in 2013. The warning serves as a reminder for users to clean out their hard drives (stock image)

The warning serves as a reminder for users to clean out their hard drives and make the most of the space they have on their machines, rather than just buy more space.

In an interview with Techradar, Mr Whitby said: 'Data has never been more important. 

'As valuable as oil and just as difficult to mine, model and manage, data is swiftly becoming a vital asset to businesses the world over'.

Mr Whitby called the looming crisis a 'data capacity gap' and said that last year the total amount of digital data produced around the world was 3.5 zettabytes.

By 2020, that will increase to 44 zettabytes of data annually, which is six zettabytes more than will be produced at the time.

Mr Whitby called the looming crisis a 'data capacity gap', which, by 2020, will be which is six zettabytes more than will be produced at the time - the equivalent of 206,158,430,208 smartphones, assuming a typical device has 32GB of storage (the iPhone 6 is pictured)

To put that into context, a single zettabyte is the equivalent of 34,359,738,368 smartphones, assuming a typical device has 32GB of storage.

Mr Whitby said: 'While the ability to squeeze ever more dense data onto the same amount of space is a real testament to human ingenuity and engineering, it's starting to reach the point where new technologies will have to take over.' 

Mr Whitby blamed the hard drive industry for not developing new products, which could lead to consumers being frustrated (stock image)

In the interview, he blamed the hard drive industry for not doing enough research into new products.

Mr Whitby said Seagate was looking into heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) as one experimental technology to increase space.

This technology uses lasers to heat the storage device and magnetically record data onto it.

Techradar reported that this could lead to 50 terabits of storage per square inch, compared to the few hundred gigabits now

The report said: 'To put this in perspective, a digital library of all books written in the world would be approximately 400 terabytes - meaning that in the very near future conceivably all such books could be stored on as few as 20 HAMR drives.'

Computers have followed Moore's law since the 1970s - early computers had just five megabytes of capacity - which states their capacity will double every two years.

The law was proposed by Intel founder Gordon Moore in a paper in 1965, but has a natural limit due to the materials used to make circuits.

Only so many chips can be put together on a piece of silicon before they stop working properly, unless new materials are found - graphene has been suggested as one option.

A typical external hard drive currently has a five terabytes of space. It costs around £200 ($312) and can store 2.5 million songs, 1,000 films and two million photos.

'MISSION IMPOSIBLE' HARDRIVE CAN BE WIPED WITH A TEXT MESSAGE 

For people who work with highly sensitive documents and official secrets - or are extremely paranoid about protecting their personal data - there is now a range of self-destructing hard drives.

Reminiscent of the gadgets in Mission Impossible, the drives can be wiped instantly simply by sending a text message - but they come with a spy price tag of £1,000 ($1,600).

There are three self-destructing drives available from London-based Secure Drives, as well as a Master Kill Switch.

Prices start at £938 ($1,500), for the Autothysis DSP, while the Autothysis128s costs £967 ($1,560) and the top-of-the-range Autothysis128t costs £1,027 ($1,663).

The Autothysis128s and Autothysis128t (pictured centre and right) are 2.5-inch solid state drives, that are controlled using a free smartphone app. When a user loses the drive, they send a text to the device and the storage is destroyed automatically. An authentication token (left) adds an extra level of security

The Autothysis128s is a 2.5-inch solid state drive (SSD), that is controlled using a free smartphone app available on Android and iOS.

More than one smartphone can be linked to a drive, and if the phone is lost or stolen, the connection can be broken using a PIN code.

The drive has 128GB of encrypted storage and can be fitted to computers, or connected externally using a USB port.

It also has built-in GSM, or cellular technology, which means it can receive text messages.

When a user loses the drive, or wants to permanently delete the data on it, they send a text to the device and the storage is destroyed automatically.

The technology is designed to fragment, or scramble, the data, making it impossible to extract or read, plus a built-in security measure stops any attempts made to recover the data.

In addition to a text message, the data can be destroyed by turning off the GSM signal, entering a PIN too many times incorrectly, removing the drive from a PC, when the battery falls below a certain level, or using an optional authentication token.