Compare These Hard Drives

"QUANTUM SHOT" #56


Are you complaining that your iPod does not have enough storage capacity?
These pictures will help you to put things in perspective:

5MB Hard Disk in 1956....



In September 1956 IBM launched the 305 RAMAC, the first computer with a hard disk drive (HDD). The HDD weighed over a ton and stored 5MB of data....
(source PCWorld)





This was a huge improvement over the ENIAC, built in 1946:





The Sixties:
IBM 1311 disk storage drive (center picture):





(source IBM Archives)

The Seventies:

IBM 3310 direct access storage (64 MB per unit):



HD from 1979; 250 MB


Eighties
Things in 1985 looked a little better:



...and if you want to speculate about the future, here is the top secret picture of how Google is going to get all the hard drive space for GMail:



Google Server Farm Building:



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