5 MB hard drive in 1956
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Do you weigh more than a duck with an anvil?
Guess that depends on the anvil
https://www.anvilfire.com/anvils/af_anvils-largest.php -
What would have happened if we just dropped a 20tb hard drive in front of the computer researchers of that time?
Nothing, they would have no idea what it was, or how to interface with it. They might even end up destroying it because they have no idea of the power requirements. Even if they managed to get it powered up and guessed at what it was for, they would still be stuck with the issue of not having an operating system which is capable of logically addressing all of the storage. And the lack of drivers would make that even harder.
A lot of modern technology sits atop a mountain of other modern technology which must be sorted out before you can even start to think about designing the end product. It could be that, since they knew what was possible, and had an example to crib off of, scientists and engineers could have gotten to that point faster. But, there is just an insane amount of prior tech in front of modern computers that any one piece of it, thrown back that far, would likely just be shiny junk.
One of my favorite things about what you are saying is modern transistor gates are smaller than microscope resolution at the time. Even if they could recognize an integrated circuit it would be another 10-20 years before they could even start to reverse engineer it.
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As you can see from the sign, hard drive parking had not yet been invented.
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Even in the 80s when I was a fresh-faced young programmer the hard drives we had in the computer room were the size of washing machines. I don't remember how much data they held, but the disk packs they held were stacks of disks more than a foot wide, spaced apart for the heads to reach in. The disk packs had clear plastic covers, like big cakes. You would lower one into the drive, twist the handle to lock it in, pull out the cover and close the lid, just like on a washing machine.
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Cute how the IBM logo basically hasn't changed
Fun fact: it used to have 13 bars, but changed to the current 8 because 13 bars could not be made pretty on (8-pin) matrix printers.
Fun fact: exactly once, the team organising IBM's participation in the Copenhagen Pride parade got away with wearing t-shirts with the bars printed in the rainbow colours. Immediately after, they were notified that such alterations to corporate branding was unacceptable.
^(I cherry the two shirts I still have.) -
Crazy how quickly technology can progress.
70 years is a long loooooooooooooooooong time for "technology"
I mean, yeah, that's what he was getting at. How 70 years seems like a long time in the context of modern technology despite being very short in the sense of human history.
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Crazy how quickly technology can progress.
70 years is a long loooooooooooooooooong time for "technology"
It is nowadays, and it is in RF and digital electronics, but that's far from universal.
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I just purchased a 28TB hard drive for $230. It would have taken 5.6 million of these IBM 350 units to equal that.
To put it into perspective, that would be more than 2 football fields in height, width, and depth (725ft³). And buying all of those units would have cost $896 billion in 1956. Adjusted for inflation that's $10.48 trillion.
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I just purchased a 28TB hard drive for $230. It would have taken 5.6 million of these IBM 350 units to equal that.
To put it into perspective, that would be more than 2 football fields in height, width, and depth (725ft³). And buying all of those units would have cost $896 billion in 1956. Adjusted for inflation that's $10.48 trillion.
where you get that deal??
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What would have happened if we just dropped a 20tb hard drive in front of the computer researchers of that time?
Nothing, they would have no idea what it was, or how to interface with it. They might even end up destroying it because they have no idea of the power requirements. Even if they managed to get it powered up and guessed at what it was for, they would still be stuck with the issue of not having an operating system which is capable of logically addressing all of the storage. And the lack of drivers would make that even harder.
A lot of modern technology sits atop a mountain of other modern technology which must be sorted out before you can even start to think about designing the end product. It could be that, since they knew what was possible, and had an example to crib off of, scientists and engineers could have gotten to that point faster. But, there is just an insane amount of prior tech in front of modern computers that any one piece of it, thrown back that far, would likely just be shiny junk.
The power requirements are printed right on the label tho…also they had x-rays back then too.
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I just purchased a 28TB hard drive for $230. It would have taken 5.6 million of these IBM 350 units to equal that.
To put it into perspective, that would be more than 2 football fields in height, width, and depth (725ft³). And buying all of those units would have cost $896 billion in 1956. Adjusted for inflation that's $10.48 trillion.
Don't trust that drive.
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Imagine what a HDD of that size could store today.
At least 1
node_modules -
where you get that deal??
Best take
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where you get that deal??
Sorry, check my edit!
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Don't trust that drive.
I mistyped. It was $330 and it's a manufacturer recertified drive with a 2 year warranty and was only spinning for 3 hours and spun up 4 times. So I don't plan on it failing for awhile. I'll eventually buy more in the future so they can be configured for RAID.
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I mistyped. It was $330 and it's a manufacturer recertified drive with a 2 year warranty and was only spinning for 3 hours and spun up 4 times. So I don't plan on it failing for awhile. I'll eventually buy more in the future so they can be configured for RAID.
I just lost a 12TB Toshiba X300 that was mere months out of its 2 year warranty. Never spin up a single drive! They will always make you wish you mirrored, one day.
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I just lost a 12TB Toshiba X300 that was mere months out of its 2 year warranty. Never spin up a single drive! They will always make you wish you mirrored, one day.
!remindme 1 year 10 months
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I just lost a 12TB Toshiba X300 that was mere months out of its 2 year warranty. Never spin up a single drive! They will always make you wish you mirrored, one day.
RAID is still no replacement for a backup. Single drives are fine as long as you have automated backups and can handle the interruption when someone goes wrong.
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In a similar sense, this is one of my favorite historical photos. A nuclear reactor delivered by steam locomotive!
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Fun fact: it used to have 13 bars, but changed to the current 8 because 13 bars could not be made pretty on (8-pin) matrix printers.
Fun fact: exactly once, the team organising IBM's participation in the Copenhagen Pride parade got away with wearing t-shirts with the bars printed in the rainbow colours. Immediately after, they were notified that such alterations to corporate branding was unacceptable.
^(I cherry the two shirts I still have.)There once was an official IBM logo issued in rainbow colours in 2017:
https://page-online.de/kreation/wie-man-mit-einem-logo-politisch-farbe-bekennt-zeigt-ibm/
