Computer Storage Options Changed 3

Computer Storage Options

By Andrew Carey

• The first hard drive was introduced into a computer in 1956 in the 305 computer.

• It had fifty 2 foot diameter disks with 100 recording surfaces. Each surface had 100 tracks. The disks spun at 1200 RPM.

• The maximum capacity for this hard drive was only 5 MB (megabytes). • The cost per MB was calculated at $10,000 at that time.

IBM RAMAC 305 One of the 2 foot disks

Hard Drives

Hard Drives Today• Hard drives have gotten smaller in size and larger in capacity, and much cheaper.

• The smallest hard drive is 0.85 inches and holds 8 GB (8192MB), and weighs 2 grams.

• The largest capacity commercial hard drive is 2 TB and is 3.5 inches. • The 2 TB hard drive is 419,430 times larger than the 5 MB hard drive of the IBM

305.• The 2 TB hard drive retails for $299.

Toshiba 8 GB micro hard drive Western Digital 2 TB hard drive

Floppy Disks• Floppy Disks were first introduced in 1969 by as an 8 inch disk with a capacity of 80

kilobytes.• In 1976 Shugart Associates came out with the 5¼ inch disk with a capacity of 110 kilobytes.• In 1982 Sony came out with the most commonly known floppy disk, the 3½ inch, able to

hold 264 kilobytes.• Most floppy disks today can still only hold about 2MB of data.• While most computers still have a floppy drive for these disks, they are rarely used. There

are much more practical uses for them as seen below.

1998 Honda Civic floppy disk car Floppy disk ball 8”, 5 ¼”, and 3½” floppy disks

CD-R• The first CD-R was made in 1988 by Taiyo Yuden.• CD-R’s are capable of holding between 184MB and 870MB.• The most common CD-R is the 80 (minutes of music)/700MB (data) disk.• A standard 100 pack of CD-R’s costs about $25-$30.• Most non-gaming computer software sold in the United States is distributed via CD.

UltraLife™ Gold Archival Grade CD-R 80MIN 700MB 52X

DVD-R• The first DVD-R was developed in 1997 by Pioneer.• DVD-R’s are capable of holding between 4.7GB and 9.4GB.• The most common DVD-R is the 120 (minutes of digital video)/4.7GB (data) disk.• A standard 100 pack of DVD-R’s costs about $30-$40.• Most gaming computer software sold in the United States is distributed via DVD because

of its large storage capacity. • DVD’s are well on the way of making CD’s obsolete, as a means of optical data storage.

Mass Storage Devices

How Far We Have Come