Reasearch and technology developments in the field of spintronics have grown tremendously in the past 10-15 years and already have had a major impact on the data storage industry.The future looks even brighter, as many new spintronic discoveries have been recently made that promise an even bigger impact in the future.This article summarizes the past accomplishments, describes some of the major discoveries that will have a lasting impact on the field, and discusses some of the technologies that may revolutionize data storage in the next decade.