Evolution of Hard Disk Essay

Hard saucer is a storage device that resides inside a computer to read and pen the entropy. Before the arrival of ambitious magnetic phonograph recording beat paper was utilize as storage device however the paper worked in a opposite way. Programs and data would be recorded using holes punched into paper where a special reader with a beam of light would scan the card or tape. The paper-based computers were used by US Navy to store data during 1940s and 1950s. During 1950s, work began in IBM on experimental weighed down record books.The researchers at IBM were working on various technologies to develop a disk need that could non only store data easily, but also practicable commercially in consumer mass market. IBM developed the early great(p) disks in 1950s, but this disk applied science was unlike todays disk. It turn on cylindrical drum oer which the magnetic patterns were stored. The early big(a) disk had operates of elusive disk in contact with surface of dis k which was done to allow the low sensitivity to read the magnetic palm and pick up the data bits.The early disk drive was broad in size mainly composed of huge vacuum tube. Its random access method occupied the space equal to two refrigerators with a weight of almost one ton. The disk huge magnetic drums were knotty and toughened to work with and its manufacturing technique was also very cumbersome. For example, it was not feasible to get the disk surface as smooth as realizable to allow adaptation the data at high speed. The disk head would also easily worn out after little use and the magnetic head would stop working.It was in late 1950s that IBM engineers anchor a break through allowing them to create the ripe day challenging disk drive. The IBM engineer found the solution to the earlier difficultys when they realized that with a proper design, the head of hard disk could be suspended over the disk surface to read the data beneath it. Working on this discovery in 195 6, IBM first hard disk (IBM 305 RAMAC was introduced. This hard disk was able to store 5 millions characters which was a huge amount in those days while todays hard disk densities are measured in billions of bits square per inch.It was in 1961 that IBM invented separate head for severally data surface in their hard drive. By 1973 IBM shipped hard disk 3model 340 that were the first sealed hard disk drive continues till today. This technology is used by almost all the hard disk manufacturers somewhat the world. Further development took arrange in 1980s when Seagate introduced the first hard disk for PC or microcomputers named as ST506. Even though it was oftentimes more smaller in size than the disks produced in that time compared to redbrick hard disks, it was twice the size.During the 1980s Philips also manufactured the optical optical maser drive. By 1981 Sony also started to ship floppy drive. In 1983 Rodime do the first 3. 5-inch floppy drive and by 1985 first CD-ROM enc yclopedia came into being. The modern 3 1/ 2 IDE drive arrived in the market in 1985. The technology used in IDE drive was not much different from the earlier disk drive technology but ultimately it was added into the magnification board.The hard card included the drive that finally evolved into IDE hard disk drive, where the controller was finally merged into the printed circuit. During 1980s the arrival of DOS do easy the selling of hard disk as DOS make computing easy for normal users. However there was problem in DOS version 3. 31 and above. The youthful DOS 4. 0 did not support hard disk larger than 32 MB. The reason for this problem was the number of sectors that could not exceed 16-bit. This need pushed the programmers to come up with new software.The solution was provided by Ontrack Disk Manager that allowed partition in hard disks. In 1986, the first 3-? hard disks that had voice coil actuator were introduced. By 1997 Seagate made big leap by introducing first 7200-RPM A TA hard disk drive for PC followed by 15000-RPM hard disk drive that allowed data reading and writing data much faster. The amazing thing about hard disk is that they havent changed that much compared to other PC related components in the past 40 years.The figure below shows the changes taken place throughout the decades in hard disk technology. Even todays hard disk basic design has remained the same, except the size, capacity and storage. thus it can be said that 1980s and 1990s allowed the spread of hard disks due to the arrival of PC which were available to the modern consumers. As the hard disk technology developed so does it capacity and size. The earliest computers normally had 20 MB drive. By 2007 desktop computers hard disks drives have reached carbon to 500 GB.