The Hard disk turns 50!

[Airbozo]

Yes it was 50 years ago that IBM introduced the hard disk, weighing in at a ton with platters 2' across and storing an AMAZING 5MB!

http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/storag...diskflashicon3


I never had the opportunity to see one in person, but the first hard disk I worked on fit in a rack (19" across) with something like 19 platters and 2 large controller boards (larger than an atx mobo). When one of those units failed we would send it back for repair (99% of the time it was a faulty head). Once it came back to us we would do an initial head alignment in our lab (the whole bottom side of the bottom platter had an alignment signal burned into it), then install it in the rack where it would live and finish the head alignment (had to align the drive in the rack it was meant to be in otherwise moving it knocked the alignment off). This drive took 2 people to move and held a whopping 500mb.

I also worked on DIABLO disk drives that had removable platters. Rather than send those units in for repair, we would replace the heads in our lab and calibrate them. Heh, my first job working on PC's was to actually fix floppy drives. Yes they were so expensive that when one failed, we repaired it rather than replace it. 5.25" floppys!

Now I feel old...

[GT40_GearHead]

happy birthday !!! dear HDD

what can i say i'm only 17, and can still see a big diferance from the 100mb hdd to SATA II etc

i remember the 4gb quantums, built like a tank, never mised a beat

as for the 5.25" floppys... they used to have them at my dads work place, on some of the spectrometers

he heee the good old days, when a defrag would take ours on a 2gb hdd

the king lives, long live the king

[MitaPi]

I feel... so young... You think I would be happy about that!

That is amazing, We have come along way in such a short time!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_350

[Aero]

I love old tech. Just 25 years ago people were amazed at things like 500mbs to 1 gig. Now its not uncommon for people to be pushing a terabyte in their computers.

[Airbozo]

I love old tech. Just 25 years ago people were amazed at things like 500mbs to 1 gig. Now its not uncommon for people to be pushing a terabyte in their computers.

Hell just 5 years ago I was proud of myself at backing up 3tb of data just from 3 of my lab machines. Now if I look around me, I have about 110tb of disk space just in my lab (not counting the data center). (not all used of course...)

[Omega]

man, and to think my 10gb hd from forever ago just died, too.

Hell man, my dad pushes near 10tb in HD space on his rig, it's insane.

[DaveW]

i remember the 4gb quantums, built like a tank, never mised a beat

The Quantum Fireballs? They were awful! lol. No worries...most HD's were back then!

Kinda makes you wonder where we'll be in 25 years time...if Moore's law holds then we should see the last 50 years of progress in the next 25 years...and so forth.

When will it end?

-Dave

[Airbozo]

When will it end?

-Dave

...Holographic memory implantation, or someone will figure out how to use the 40% (or more) of our brain we don't use, for storage and external processing...

...Followed by direct stimulation of the optic nerve, completely eliminating the need for displays...

Just my theory.

[Cevinzol]

I remember taking a 10 meg HDD out of a customers machine. it was 5.25", was two full bays high and weighted 10 pounds. 1 pound per meg can you imageing the weight of a flash drive if that ratio had stayed the same?

or someone will figure out how to use the 40% (or more) of our brain we don't use

Psychologists have discovered with stroke victims that the "unused" portion of our brain works to compensate for damaged areas. Its kind of neat to know you have a built in 'system restore' function in your head.