IBM hard disk drive from 1956

With a capacity of 5 MB, the IBM 350 disk storage unit could have stored about two MP3 files. This photo, showing a unit getting forklifted onto a plane, is from 1956.

IBM's history website has more information about the drive.

IBM 350 disk storage unit (Thanks, Roy Doty!)

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Anonymous

“IBM’s history website has more information about the drive.”…than the drive could have ever held…
Anonymous

Inside the box were two little people, chipping your info onto stone tablets…
Anonymous

Today, a device with 6,400 times that storage unit’s capacity could fit in the space of a postage stamp. Amazing advances in the storage industry!
Anonymous

. . .tough to get that sucker on a key chain!
ian71

Oh come on.. who would ever even need 640K? 5 MEGS?? That’s more than you’d ever read.. it’s just an impossible amount of data.
Ultan

Well, you have to compare it to what they had at the time – and even then it sucked. The equivalent amount of information on punched cards would have taken 16 times less room.

80 bytes per card -> 62,500 cards / 5 MB -> 4″ x 8″ x 0.01″ ~= 3 cu. ft.

The device in the picture appears to be about 6′ x 4′ x 2′ = 48 cu. ft.

OTOH, the drum had better access times.
Anonymous

Coming soon! Terra bite thumbnails and softer computer chairs with built in toilets.
Anonymous

1956! That was when I was born. As hard disks got smaller, I got bigger. Is this a Dorian Grey kinda thing?
Anonymous

Agree that’s got to be a drum, not a disk.

We stored a lot more data per bit then than we do now. Led to some really goofy coding but the more information you could cram into this limited storage medium the better a programmer you were. — Just remember Y2K.

Also there were 5 and 6 bit bytes on some machines I used.

Took a corporate level decision to buy more space on the system.
Roy Trumbull

As late as 1986 a drive the size of a washing machine with a removable pack that was either 6 or 8 disks held less than a half gig.
dagfooyo

Only two mp3 files? That’s the equivalent of one 45 record! Wow, who’s the lightweight music medium now? Er, I mean then? I’m not a time traveller. Honest!
nixiebunny

Then there was the interface electronics – another rack of tube gear.

This much platter area could store about one petabyte these days.
neuromodder

It could store that picture of itself about 160 times. (if my math is correct)
Anonymous

I was under the impression this was a drum drive rather than a disk drive.
Anonymous

It’s all relative. Look at the size of ports on that giant USB hub… I mean, forklift.
Anonymous

No wireless.

Less space than a Nomad.

Lame.

————————-

explainer: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/1816257
dross1260

It was all about IBM’s Into Airplane Experience.
Absent

And how long would it have taken the attached computer’s processor to decompress those two mp3s and convert them into an analogue audio signal?
- GeekMan
  
  Don’t forget the memory! If the information can’t be processed in real time, you’d need to page all that decompressed audio to RAM.
- bcuda69
  
  It looks like the data throughput is about 15 kilobytes/sec. So if it was read and processed in realtime, it would take about 5 minutes. I don’t see how it could have a 600ms seek with only one access arm operated pnuematically.
Anonymous

in 1984 a winchester hard drive for the synclavier synth was about the size of a suitcase and still only 5mb
Anonymous

In 1986 I bought a 1 gigabyte drive the size of a suitcase for $10,000. Now its hard to find a 1 gig thumb drive.
Anonymous

This particular unit was being delivered to the New Zealand government.
- Anonymous
  
  Why did the New Zeland government have two favorite songs? :-)
  - Ugly Canuck
    
    Their National Anthem, with God Save The Queen as the B-side, I’m guessing.
    
    Here they are, in case you’re wondering what they sound like.
    First the Kiwi Anthem:
    
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An5Hyoq-lXQ
    
    And next, God Save The Queen:
    
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN9EC3Gy6Nk
    
    I am guessing that they yet worship the same Queen that England does.
    - Ugly Canuck
      
      Perhaps “worship” is not quite the right word.
      
      AS to computer memory, is there any theoretical limit in sight as to how small we can get them?
      I wonder how long this shrinkage can continue…
      - AnthonyC
        
        There is a limit, but it is measured in atoms per bit (or maybe bits per atom, if IBM is to be believed). See http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/31006
Chuck

One of those things held a Top Secret cat video during a good stretch of the Cold War.
- orwellian
  
  In Soviet Russia, cat lols YOU!
  
  I know, I know, In 1985, that joke was actually funny. Lend me your time machine and I’ll run back and tell it to Reagan.
UncaScrooge

If you work in the public sector, your office probably had one of these installed in the 60s to run your financial system. Then removed and decommissioned in the 90s.