The first computer with a hard drive, named ‘305 RAMAC’, was introduced by IBM on September 13th 1956. The total hard drive capacity was 5 million 7-bit characters which is approximately 4.4MB according to present storage standards. It was 5 feet in height, a little less than 6 feet broad and 2.5 feet deep. The dimension of the drive was more than the size of two refrigerators kept side by side and weighed over a ton. A heavy duty fork lift was used to transport it. This 350 Disk File, having a stack of fifty 24” discs, allowed random access of data without a determined order. It was rented out for an annual fee of $35,000.
50 years hard drives underwent radical changes in their storage capacity and size. Hard drives are now available from 1GB to 500 GB withrnsize dimensions ranging from 1 inch to 3.5 inches. For a very fast access torninformation they come with an array of spindle speed ranges of 3,600-rpm,rn4,200-rpm, 5,400-rpm, 7,200-rpm, 10,000-rpm and 15,000-rpm. These hard drivesrnserve a number of diverse application needs. They are used in compact musicrnplayers, digital video recorders, game consoles, residential servers, printers,rncopiers, PCs, Laptops, online servers, business networks and data centres, withrnprovisions to use external USB and other connections.
Venture storage or business storage has most benefited by the changes in the size of the hard drives. Currently, 2.5 inch hard drives are replacing the 3.5 inch hard drives enabling increased server space in a 1U rack. With increased RPM the IOPS (input/output operations per second) correspondingly they offer increased performance. It is assessed that a 2U rack accommodating 2.5 inch drives will offer a 150% increase in IOPS than a 3U rack with 3.5 inch drives. These 2.5 inch hard drives save money on the investment of the number of servers, wiring, switches, UPS rack shelves, with easy mirroring and realistic redundancy.
Hard drives of today even come in 1 inch size and 1GB to 5GB memory offering diversified usages in consumer electronics. They are substituting the flash memory in hand carried music players, offering storage options for digital cameras, video game consoles, routing guidance for cars and application rich programs for mobile phones. The hard drive industry has come a long way in these 50 years from a meagre 5 MB to mega 500 GB.
Hard drives of the future will have to meet superior variety of functions and exacting market standards. The whole scenario is exciting.