Happy 50th, HDDs!

[DejaWiz]

Wow. 50 years of hard drives. I had no idea they've actually been around this long.

The IBM System 305, the world's first computer with a hard drive, debuted in 1956 and relied on the random access method of accounting and control (RAMAC) to store data.

My first drive was an older MFM 20MB Seagate from an IBM 286 I bought for my 8 MHz 8088 Packard Bell back in 1990. Snagged it and the ISA controller for $10. A year later I paid $180 for a 255MB Samsung IDE drive, because, you know, DOS 5.0 took up SO much room and all....

Oh the memories.

 

[Menelmarar]

First was a 540MB Western Digital.

 

[drizzt81]

happy b-day harddrives. You know, without you guys, we couldn't store our pr0n and mp3z.. thanks for such good times