【Haichuan Teahouse】The world’s first external hard drive
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This post was last edited by Desert Fish on 2021-10-26 09:04. In 1956, a hard drive with a capacity of 5M bytes, used by the IBM305 vacuum tube computer, was loaded onto an airplane. This hard drive is the famous IBM 305 RAMAC, regarded as the pioneer of modern mechanical hard drives. This type of hard drive is specifically used for order and accounting purposes; it weighs over a ton and must be transported using forklifts and large cargo planes. And it is for rent only, not for sale, with a monthly rent of $3,200, which is equivalent to $29,000 in today’s dollars.
The world’s first hard drive was invented in 1956, and it is now over 61 years old, meaning more than half a century has passed since then. It was manufactured by IBM and was the world’s first hard drive: the 350 RAMAC. The disk has a diameter of 24 inches, with 50 disks in total; its weight is over 100 kilograms, which is equivalent to the volume of two refrigerators. However, its storage capacity is only 5MB. In that era, the RAMAC was an amazing computer device, used in banks and the medical field. Although the 350 RAMAC cannot be considered a hard drive in the strict sense, it marked a new chapter in the history of computer development.
Due to the large size and low efficiency of RAMAC, IBM introduced the “Winchester” technology and developed a new type of hard drive, the IBM 3340, in the 1960s. This type of hard drive has several coaxial metal platters, with magnetic material coated on them. They are sealed together in a box with a movable head, which reads the changes in magnetic signals from the rotating disk. This is the ancestor of the hard drives we use today – IBM called it the Winchester hard drive, also known as a Win disk. This nickname comes from his two 30MB storage units, which correspond exactly to the caliber and loading capacity of the famous \"Winchester rifle\" of that time. Thus, the basic architecture of the hard drive is established.
The famous Seagate is making its appearance