HISTORY OF THE HARD DISK DRIVE

DATA PROCESSING AND THE FIRST STORAGE DEVICE

Early computers did not incorporate HDD's for storage, because they were not invented yet.  In fact, they did not even use floppy disks for storing data.  During the 1950's - 1960's they used paper tape, and then paper cards. Each time you stored information in a different format, you had to manually program the computer to do what was needed.  You did not have pre-loaded software programs to do the job for you --- not even on a floppy disk.  Imagine having to pull out a panel and wire it each time you wanted to save information or data in a different format. As the computer operator typed in the data or information to be stored, the IBM 024 80-Column Card Punch computer machine would punch holes into cards that were fed from a stacked tray on the right.  It worked similar to a typewriter, except instead of the machine typing letters as you hit the keys, it would punch holes.  The cards were fed from right-to-left in front of your keyboard on the machine, so that you could actually see what was happening. When the card was filled, it would end up in another stacked tray on the left.  A second computer operator would then gather the stack of cards and retype the same data or information on the exact same cards on another machine called the IBM Card Verifier, to make sure that there were no errors.  If there were errors, the cards were sent back to the first computer operator and he or she had to redo the work.  You obviously could not erase mistakes, and the high cost of operating the final mainframe computer did not allow for errors.

IBM experimented with many variations of what eventually became the first HDD.  The very first one, even though it used magnetic storage similar to what we use today, did not use a flat disk.  It used a metal drum shaped like a can. However, it was extremely large and hard to work with.

Eventually, IBM invented the first true disk storage drive, which contained 50 flat disks.  Each disk was 24 inches in diameter.  That means its form factor was 24 inches.  Put two 12 inch rulers side by side and you will get an idea of how wide the disks were. Pile 50 of those disks on top of each other and you can begin to appreciate the enormous size of this HDD compared to those used today.  Now consider the fact that this huge monster hard drive only could store a total of 5 megabytes of information or data.  The name of this HDD was the IBM 305 RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control), and was unveiled in 1956.  IBM would not sell the RAMAC hard disk drive.  However, you could lease one of colossal giants for  $35,000 a year.   To appreciate how much the 5 meg hard drive cost to lease in 1956, understand that a new Cadillac could be bought for $4000 and a new Rolls Royce for $10,000. (The RAMAC hard drive is the large box that looks like a cabinet on the right side of the picture.)

We have come a long way since those days, and worked down through the form factors of 5.25", 3.5", 2.5", 1.8", 1.3", and it continues to grow smaller.  Additionally, the amount of storage space has increased from a mere 5 megabytes to the incredible capacity now measured in terabytes. As the old saying goes, "We've come a long way baby", and we owe it all to Herman Hollerith of IBM