Monday, December 6, 2010

History of hard disk development

The hard disk drive has short and fascinating history.   In 24 years it evolved from a monstrosity with fifty two-foot diameter disks holding five MBytes (5,000,000 bytes) of data to today's drives measuring 3 /12 inches wide and an inch high (and smaller) holding 400 GBytes (400,000,000,000 bytes/characters).   Here, then, is the short history of this marvelous device.

Before  the  disk  drive  there  were  drums...  [Paid Recommendations^^: Using Mac photo recovery to recover your lost photos.] In  1950  Engineering  Research  Associates  of Minneapolis  built  the  first  commercial  magnetic  drum  storage  unit  for  the  U.S.  Navy,  the  ERA 110. It could store one million bits of data and retrieve a word in 5 thousandths of a second..
 
In 1956 IBM invented the first computer disk storage system, the 305 RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control).   This system could store five MBytes.   It had fifty, 24-inch diameter disks!
 
By 1961 IBM had invented the first disk drive with air bearing heads and in 1963 they introduced the removable disk pack drive.
 
In  1970  the  eight  inch  floppy  disk  drive  was  introduced  by  IBM.   My  first  floppy  drives  were made by Shugart who was one of the "dirty dozen" who left IBM to start their own companies.   In 1981  two  Shugart  8  inch  floppy  drives  with  enclosure  and  power  supply  cost  me  about
$350.00.   They were for my second computer.   My first computer had no drives at all.
 
In  1973  IBM shipped the  model 3340  Winchester  sealed hard disk drive,  the  predecessor  of  all current hard disk drives.   The 3340 had two spindles each with a capacity of 30 MBytes, and the term "30/30 Winchester" was thus coined.
 
In  1980,  Seagate  Technology  introduced  the  first  hard  disk  drive  for  microcomputers,  the ST506.  [Paid Recommendations^^: Using photo recovery to recover your lost photos.] It  was  a  full  height  (twice  as  high  as  most  current  5  1/4"  drives)  5  1/4"  drive,  with  a stepper  motor,  and  held  5  Mbytes.   My  first  hard  disk  drive  was  an  ST506. I  cannot  remember exactly how much it cost, but it plus its enclosure, etc. was well over a thousand dollars. It took me three years to fill the drive.   Also, in 1980 Phillips introduced the first optical laser drive.   In the  early  80's,  the  first  5  1/4"  hard  disks  with  voice  coil  actuators  (more  on  this  later)  started shipping  in  volume,  but  stepper  motor  drives  continued  in  production  into  the  early  1990's. In 1981, Sony shipped the first 3 1/2" floppy drives.
 
In 1983 Rodime made the first 3.5 inch rigid disk drive. The first CD-ROM drives were shipped in 1984, and "Grolier's Electronic Encyclopedia," followed in 1985. The 3 1/2" IDE drive started its existence as a drive on a plug-in expansion board, or "hard card." The hard card included the drive on the controller which, in turn, evolved into Integrated Device Electronics (IDE) hard disk drive, where the controller became incorporated into the printed circuit on the bottom of the hard disk drive. Quantum made the first hard card in 1985.
 
In 1986 the first 3 /12" hard disks with voice coil actuators were introduced by Conner in volume, but  half  (1.6")  and  full  height  5  1/4"  drives  persisted  for  several  years.   In  1988  Conner introduced the first one inch high 3 1/2" hard disk drives.   In the same year PrairieTek shipped the
first 2 1/2" hard disks.
 
In 1997 Seagate introduced the first 7,200 RPM, Ultra ATA hard disk drive for desktop computers and in February of this year they introduced the first 15,000 RPM hard disk drive,  the  Cheetah X15.   Milestones for IDE DMA, ATA/33, and ATA/66 drives follow:
 
1994 DMA, Mode 2 at 16.6 MB/s  
1997 Ultra ATA/33 at 33.3 MB/s  
1999 Ultra ATA/66 at 66.6 MB/s  
 
6/20/00   IBM triples the capacity of the world's smallest hard disk drive.   This drive holds one gigabyte on a disk which is the size of an American quarter.   The world's first gigabyte-capacity disk drive, the IBM 3380, introduced in 1980, was the size of a refrigerator, weighed 550 pounds (about 250 kg), and had a price tag of $40,000.

Another article:http://repaireordinateur.blogspot.com/2010/12/connexion-composants-de-votre.html

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