In the beginning

[danball1976]

This thread is all about the original PC hard drives. Even though IBM invented the first hard drive in 1956, it was for mainframe applications, and held something like 5MB on 50 disks the size of a refridgerator, or according to the website:
IBM in 1956 (http://www-1.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_1956.html)
The IBM 305 RAMAC and 650 RAMAC machines are launched. The 305 is the first magnetic hard disk for data storage, and the RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control) technology soon becomes the industry standard. The storage capacity of the 305's 50 two-foot diameter disks was 5 megabytes of data

Seagate however was the first to produce a hard drive for the PC market, and it was just 5MB and a MTBF of just 11,000 hours:

To read a little more about hard drives, go here:
RedHill Hard Drive Index (http://www.redhill.net.au/id.html)

Or to see some of the first hard drives specs and such, click here:
<a href="http://www.danball1976.com/downloads/Legacy_IDE_Drives.zip">Legacy Drives</a>

[a2jfreak]

The oldest HD I ever saw was a HardCard20. It plugged into the motherboard, much like an ISA card (perhaps it was an ISA card). I believe the system was an 8088, but I'm not positive. I am almost positive, however, that it was pre-286.

The largest hard drive (by dimensions, not capacity) I've ever seen was in my PC Hardware class. The thing was huge. It was a 5.25" HD, but it took 2 or 3 bays! The thing was massive and pretty heavy too. As for storage capacity, I have no idea.

[danball1976]

That was Quantum's old harddrive. You can find it in Maxtors archive:
http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/products/archive.htm
http://www.maxtor.com/en/documentation/pdf_jumper_settings/hardcard_jumpers.pdf

That harddrive that took two bays back then would have been 10MB at the min, it was in a IBM AT computer, and the drive was a Seagate.

[SimGuy]

Oldest hard disk I've seen was made by Quantum. The hard disk measured 12.5" L x 8.75" W x 5.25" H. It must have weighed at least 10 lbs.

Cracking the top off the unit, there were 2 platters inside. Each one measured 8" in diameter. Although I have no idea what size a capacity these hard disks had, they were from an old mainframe system of an unknown manufacturer.

[danball1976]

I don't really know what drive that could be IDE, or SCSI, but you can search Maxtor's product archive for it.

[Kwitko]

My father owned a computer store in the early 80's. I remember that they had a hard drive with 12" platters. It was a 40MB if I remember correctly, and it was the size of a 2 drawer file cabinet.

[danball1976]

TD_Isles said
My father owned a computer store in the early 80's. I remember that they had a hard drive with 12&quot; platters. It was a 40MB if I remember correctly, and it was the size of a 2 drawer file cabinet.

That must of been from one of the many companies that went out of business over 10 yrs ago.

There were over 50 hard drive companies over 10yrs ago.
Now there are less than a dozen.

[WuGgaRoO]

damn.. i must be a youngin amongsty all uy pplz...the earliest h i ever saw was one with the gateway 2000...and the 386 cpu....it had a .2 gig hd

[danball1976]

Well, to tell you the truth, the first time I saw a hard drive, it was for the Apple ][c. The case it was inside was at least 12" deep, 10" wide, and 3-4" tall. It held 50MB (I think - this was in 1989).

Actually, in that class, our instructor (excuse me... I mean teacher... I'm too used to the military use of instructor) showed us some old hard drives that didn't work, that were opened. 10 disks, stepper motor technology, and at least 4" high by at least 8" deep and 6" wide. It may have held less than 50MB.

[Straight_Man]

If you want to see some SCARY prices, look here and scroll down to the Hard Drives section.

http://www.atarimagazines.com/startspe1/hardware.html

First HD I had was run by a Supra controller, and was in a 5-1\4" double height floppy enclosure that I had first used for two 5-1\4 floppies with a Sinclair ZX81 based computer. Could not afford the Supra case, rolled my own cable from specs that were kinda hard to understand for a relative newbie, and generally had fun.

The history books online tell me that the HDs were probably Seagates, the capacity TINY (about 9 MB to 20 MB, one of the first made), the storage controller chips on the controller were WDC chips.

if I remember later, will stick a webtuned pic of the case with a cat warming itself on the green-on-black monochrome monitor next to it up in this thread just for fun.

[profdlp]

Ageek said
If you want to see some SCARY prices, look here and scroll down to the Hard Drives section.

http://www.atarimagazines.com/startspe1/hardware.html

Yikes! 200 clams for 512K of ram! Cool article, Ageek.:thumbsup:

if I remember later, will stick a webtuned pic of the case with a cat warming itself on the green-on-black monochrome monitor next to it up in this thread just for fun.

I would love to see that!


Prof