Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Fiftieth Anniversary of the Hard Drive

Jack Cole points out that Wednesday, September 13, 2006, is the fiftieth anniversary of the shipment of the first hard drive. The IBM 305 RAMAC (Random Access Memory Accounting System) held five megabytes, was about the size of two large refrigerators, and leased for about a quarter of a million dollars a year, in today's dollars.

I wonder what the MB/watt figure is for that puppy? That measure would see a steeper decline than most other measures of growth, I think.

Wikipedia has a photo. You should also check out the Magnetic Disk Heritage Center, run by Al Hoagland, one of the founders of the field.

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