The First Hard Drive from 50 Years Ago

MathsIsFun · 2006-07-30 23:00:47

The drive weighed a ton, required a separate air compressor to protect the heads, had pizza-sized platters and for all that you got 5 megabytes. Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14096484/site/newsweek/

Zhylliolom · 2006-07-30 23:14:19

I found the description of it hilarious. Just imagine how a 1956 man's head would spin if he were transported to 2006 and saw how small and powerful hard drives have become.

Here's the 1956 man working with the pinnacle of his day's technology:

MathsIsFun · 2006-07-30 23:39:08

Caption "... and this button will then PLAY the mp3!"

Zhylliolom · 2006-07-30 23:46:05

"So how many songs can this thing play?"

"Well... it only has space for one. And you can't really hear it over the noise of the hard drive."

He could put it on wheels and have his own primitive one-song iPod with him everywhere he goes (provided it fits where he goes).

Patrick · 2006-07-31 02:07:22

Well, they didnt(for obvious reasons ^^) have mp3's ogg vorbis or anything like that at the time, so it would prolly only be like a chorus

"... So what you're saying is, that this computer has 3 harddiscs, each with 200 megabytes of storage space? That's 600 megabytes! I really hope you can understand why I don't believe you."
"Not megabytes - GIGAbytes."
"But that's... *faints*"

ryos · 2006-07-31 17:59:56

Nifty. Near the end of the article, it speculates about Petabytes becoming available in the future.

What would a home user do with petabytes of storage? I can't conceive of a use for all that storage...except one: a versioned file system.

Anyone who's used source code control systems like CVS or Subversion should already know what I'm talking about. Basically, these programs create a file system that remembers everything that was ever done to it. So, every version of code developed along the way is stored, and if you mess something up, you can always just roll back to an earlier version. And because they store only the differences between successive versions, they remain quite compact considering what they do.

All versioning systems that I am aware of require periodic commits, or, that is to say, you have to notify the system that you have changed a file and have it save your changes to the versioned repository. But if you had enough storage, you could have the commits happen automatically, i.e. every time you do anything to your hard drive. Your drive would remember everything that was ever done to it.

You would never worry about corrupt files, accidentally deleted files, or messed up OS installations again. You would have a record of everything you had ever done on your computer...

Do you think such a thing will ever become practical?

MathsIsFun · 2006-07-31 18:28:46

Database management systems like SQL Server have transaction logging. Every addition/change/deletion is logged. so you can roll-back or roll-forward. Say you have a backup every night, and someone accidently deletes a heap of stuff at lunchtime, you can restore from the nightly backup and then re-do all the transaction to just before lunch. In theory that is - in practice it is hard.

All_Is_Number · 2006-08-01 02:31:53

ryos wrote:

Nifty. Near the end of the article, it speculates about Petabytes becoming available in the future.
What would a home user do with petabytes of storage? I can't conceive of a use for all that storage...except one: a versioned file system.

When I was just out of high school, my best friend, who was definitely a computer geek, claimed that no one would ever need a Gigabyte of hardware space. I had a 100 megabyte HDD which was considered pretty big.

Currently the LAN where I live (2-3 people at any given time) has about 2 Terabytes of hard drive space. I doubt there is a Gigabyte of free disk space on the entire network, and we still have plenty of CDs, movies and applications that remain to be saved to the hard drive.

It won't be that long before a TB isn't considered much space.

mikau · 2006-08-01 03:46:04

I bet more advanced types of media and or software will require more harddrive space, but at this point, based on the processing speed we have more then enough harddrive space. When computers get even faster and more powerfull then the extra space may be usefull but at this point I'd say we have more then enough.

Devantè · 2006-08-01 08:20:51

Pretty interesting...it's quite amazing how technology has evolved over the years. It's just like the first amplifier...

Math Is Fun Forum

#1 2006-07-30 23:00:47

The First Hard Drive from 50 Years Ago

#2 2006-07-30 23:14:19

Re: The First Hard Drive from 50 Years Ago

#3 2006-07-30 23:39:08

Re: The First Hard Drive from 50 Years Ago

#4 2006-07-30 23:46:05

Re: The First Hard Drive from 50 Years Ago

#5 2006-07-31 02:07:22

Re: The First Hard Drive from 50 Years Ago

#6 2006-07-31 17:59:56

Re: The First Hard Drive from 50 Years Ago

#7 2006-07-31 18:28:46

Re: The First Hard Drive from 50 Years Ago

#8 2006-08-01 02:31:53

Re: The First Hard Drive from 50 Years Ago

#9 2006-08-01 03:46:04

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#10 2006-08-01 08:20:51

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