Home Notifications Newsletters Next Share

Computer hard drives have shrunk like crazy over the last 60 years - here's a look backhttps://www.businessinsider.in/computer-hard-drives-have-shrunk-like-crazy-over-the-last-60-years-heres-a-look-back/1956-ibm-shipped-the-first-hard-drive-its-5mb-ramac-305-by-todays-standards-it-was-unfathomably-huge-each-megabyte-cost-10000-or-88000-in-todays-dollars-/slidelist/55097776.cms2016-10-27T20:03:50+05:30

Computer hard drives have shrunk like crazy over the last 60 years - here's a look back

Oct 27, 2016, 20:03 IST

1956 - IBM shipped the first hard drive, its 5MB RAMAC 305. By today's standards it was unfathomably huge. Each megabyte cost $10,000, or $88,000 in today's dollars.

1963 - IBM unveiled the first removable hard drive, the 1311, which bore an uncanny resemblance to a record player. It came with 2.6MB of storage.

1973 - IBM released the boldly-colored 3340, which could hold up to 70MB or work with another IBM processor to create a composite 280MB drive.

1979 - IBM debuted the 3370, a 571MB drive the size of a modern-day photocopier. It used seven 14-inch "platters" to hold data.

1980 - IBM introduced the first 1GB hard drive. With its complete casing, it was the size of a refrigerator, weighed about 550 pounds, and cost $40,000.

1980 - Seagate introduced a competing drive to IBM. By this point, the 5MB had shrunk in size to just a 5.25-inch hard disk. It cost $4,300 (in today's dollars).

1983 - Rodime released the first 3.5-inch hard disk, the RO352, setting a standard for desktop computer drives. It held 10MB at a cost of $1,895, or almost $4,500 today.

1988 - Prairie Tek released the 220. The 2.5-inch drive was created for the budding laptop market and is still the standard size used in notebooks today. Its two platters can store 20MB.

1992 - Hewlett-Packard pushed the limits of minuscule drives with the C3013A Kitty Hawk drive. It used two 1.3-inch platters to store 2.1GB.

1998 - IBM's Microdrive was released to the public, setting a new benchmark for the smallest hard drive to date. Its 340MB of storage fit on a single 1-inch platter. (Remember that 1956 IBM behemoth?)

2004 - Not to be outdone, Toshiba released a 0.85-inch hard drive that could store 2GB on a single platter.

2006 - Commercial storage began to ramp up with Seagate's release of the Barracuda 7200.10, the largest drive to date at 750GB.

2007 - Moving into the next order of magnitude, Hitachi GST released the first 1 terabyte hard drive, the Deskstar 7K1000. It could hold 200,000 times as much as IBM's original drive.

2011 - Companies vied to outdo each other for the next several years, with Seagate eventually releasing the first 4TB hard drive, the Barracuda XT.

2013 - HGST announced a helium-filled 6 TB hard disk drive. The device made for less drag and faster processing because helium is lighter than air, but increased manufacturing costs.

2014 - The very next year, Seagate introduced 6TB hard drives that don't use helium. They were cheaper, but used more power to operate at higher temperatures.

2015 - Finally last year, HGST outdid itself to pass the 10TB mark with its Ultrastar Archive Ha10 SMR. It was a world first.

2016 - Seagate unveiled the monstrous 60TB SSD, which is not yet available for purchase. Accounting for inflation, it'll cost $400,000 less than IBM's first 5MB drive, but offer 12,000,000 times the storage capacity.

Next Story Top visa-on-arrival picks for Indian explorers