| The first hard drive
was created in 1956 by the IBM company and it was known as the
RAMAC 305. It was able to hold
five megabytes of data and every
megabyte cost a pricy $10,000. This hard drive had 24"
platters inside and there were a total of 50 of these. The
platters inside the hard drive were just metal disks with magnetic
surfaces. Later, in 1963, IBM invented the removable hard drive
which was made up of six 14" platters. This hard drive held up to 2.6 MB of
data and it was model 1311. Later
on, other companies were founded and began to make their own line of disk drives.
Some of these companies were Pertec Computer Corporation (PCC)
and Western Digital Corporation. In 1973, IBM introduced
the first hard drive with a sealed assembly, small heads, and lubricated
spindles. In 1979, Seagate Technology invented the St-506 hard
drive with interface that was used in all microcomputer applications. Years passed, and the hard
drive became smaller and able to hold more data. In 1998,
IBM launched the first micro drive and it was able to store 340 MB of
data on only a 1" platter. Currently, you can
buy a 500 GB external hard drive for your computer for a couple
hundred dollars which is a lot cheaper than past hard drives. |
