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The astounding evolution of the hard drive |
September 12, 2013
Digital storage gets small (and huge)From the room-size monster that cost a king's ransom to the diminutive device that today costs just a few bucks, the evolution of the hard drive is an amazing story of an industry that's continually delivering more for less.In just 30 years, the cost of storing a gigabyte of data has plunged from more than $100,000 to mere pennies. Allow us to present the wonderful and amazing history of the hard drive.IBM 305 RAMAC Disk SystemIBM's 305 RAM disk system is the distant ancestor of the hard drive we know today.The drive was introduced in 1956 as part of IBM's 305 RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control). It could hold a whopping 5MB of data on 50 24-inch-diameter disks. The hard drive alone was the size of a refrigerator, and the entire unit weighed more than a ton. The system cost $10,000 per megabyte. But for its day, that steep price tag was fully justified by system's ability to recall data from storage in just 600 milliseconds. IBM sold more than 1000 units during the storage system's five-year lifespan.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2048232/the-astounding-evolution-of-the-hard-drive.html#tk.rss_all
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