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Essay on Hard Drives
What is a hard drive?
A hard drive is a non-volatile data storage device that stores data on a magnetic surface layered onto hard disk platters.
History
The first computer with a hard disk drive as standard was the IBM 350 Disk File, introduced in 1955 with the IBM 305 computer. This drive had fifty 24-inch platters, with a total capacity of five million characters. In 1952, an IBM engineer named Reynold Johnson developed a massive hard disk consisting of fifty platters, each two feet wide, that rotated on a spindle at 1200 rpm with read/write heads for the first database running RCAs Bismark computer.
In 1973, IBM introduced the 3340 Winchester disk system (the developers called it the "30-30" because of its two 30MB spindles, leading project lead Kenneth Haughton to name it after the Winchester 30-30 rifle), the first to use a sealed head/disk assembly (HDA). Almost all modern disk drives now use this technology, and the term Winchester became a common description for all hard disks, though generally falling out of use during the 1990s. (Pogue, pp. 55-57)
For many years, hard disks were large, cumbersome devices, more suited to use in the protected environment of a data center or large office than in a harsh industrial environment (due to their delicacy), or small office or home (due to their size and power consumption). Before the early 1980s, most hard disks had 8-inch or 14-inch platters, required an equipment rack or a large amount of floor space (especially the large removable-media drives, which were often referred to as "washing machines"), and in many cases needed high-amperage or even three-phase power hookups due to the large motors they used.
Because of this, hard disks were not commonly used with microcomputers until after 1980, when Seagate Technology introduced the ST-506, the first 5.25-inch hard drive, with a capacity of 5 megabytes. In fact, in its factory configuration the original IBM PC (IBM 5150) was not equipped with a hard drive. (Pogue, pp. 58-60)....
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