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A History of Storage, From Punch Cards To Blu-ray

Posted by timothy on from the isn't-that-right-joey dept.

notthatwillsmith writes "Maximum PC just posted a comprehensive visual retrospective about data storage, starting with the once state of the art punch card and moving through the popular formats of yesteryear, including everything from magtape to Blu-ray discs. It's amazing how much data you could pack on a few hundred feet of half-inch magnetic tape!"

6 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. The one-page version by damn_registrars · · Score: 4, Informative

    For those who don't want to go through several pages of ads, is here.

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  2. Jaz Drive by Thelasko · · Score: 4, Informative

    I worked with a bunch of Jaz Drives back in the day. One person dropped a disk, and it failed. The disk was inserted into a drive, and the drive failed. Another disk was inserted into that drive, and that disk failed. It spread like a plague through all of the machines.

    All of the money and data lost due to those things still makes me cringe.

    --
    One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  3. what about hard drives? by wjh31 · · Score: 4, Informative

    It manages to list lots of faliures and successes, but still managed to miss HDD's and SSD, y'know, the sporta thing where people probably store most of their data

  4. Re:Incomplete by gnick · · Score: 4, Informative

    Crud. That big long post and I had GB == TB all the way through... The only places I had it right are where I screwed up TB v GB on both sides... To be fair, though, you mangled it too - 1.6/1000 != .16. Let's try that again:

    Punch Card (960 bits) ~= 0.000000000006 LOCs
    Audio Tape (1400 kB) ~= 0.00000000007 LOCs
    Magnetic tape (35 kB) ~= 0.00000000175 LOCs
    8" floppy (1.2 MB) ~= 0.00000006 LOCs
    5.25" floppy (1.2 MB) ~= 0.00000006 LOCs
    3.5" floppy ~= 0.000000072 LOCs
    SmartMedia (128 MB) ~= 0.0000064 LOCs
    LS-120 (240 MB) ~= 0.000012 LOCs
    CD (700MB) ~= 0.000035 LOCs
    Zip drive (750 MB) ~= 0.0000375 LOCs
    MiniDisc (1 GB) ~= 0.00005 LOCs
    Jaz drive (2 GB) ~= 0.0001 LOCs
    Magneto-optical drive (2.6 GB) ~= 0.00013 LOCs
    Microdrive (8 GB) ~= 0.0004 LOCs
    DVD (8.5 GB) ~= 0.000425 LOCs
    Colorado backup (14 GB) ~= 0.0007 LOCs
    HD-DVD (30 GB) ~= 0.0015 LOCs
    SD (32 GB) ~= 0.0016 LOCs
    Blu-ray (50 GB) ~= 0.0025 LOCs
    USB flash (64 GB) ~= 0.0032 LOCs
    Compact flash (100 GB) ~= 0.005 LOCs
    IBM Magnetic Tape (1 TB) ~= 0.05 LOCs
    T10000 Magnetic Tape (1 TB) ~= 0.05 LOCs
    2.5" portable hard drive (1 TB) ~= 0.05 LOCs

    Better?

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    He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
  5. IBM Reference by HockeyPuck · · Score: 4, Informative

    To get a better look at where storage came from, head on over to IBM's Archives: http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_intro.html Then check out the historical product profiles, documentation and videos: http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_reference.html

  6. MaximumPC helps IBM disseminate misinformation by metasonix · · Score: 4, Informative

    Quote: "The long length presented plenty of opportunities for tears and breaks, so in 1952, IBM devised bulky floor standing drives that made use of vacuum columns to buffer the nickel-plated bronze tape."

    Wrongo, buddy. Stop cribbing from IBM's website. IBM is notorious for making themselves out as "pioneers" for every computing technology.

    The first magnetic-tape drive for a computer to ACTUALLY BE SHIPPED was the Univac Uniservo drive. First system with drives went to the US Census Bureau in December 1951--more than a year before IBM shipped their first tape drive. (and yes, it used nickel-plated bronze tape.)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_tape_data_storage
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNISERVO