Hard Drive Has A History Of Fifty Years.

CNET technology information network September 12th International Report: hard disk has fundamentally changed the way our world stores data.

In the foreseeable future, the hard disk is still the main carrier of this task.

Jim Porter, President of Disk/Trend research, said that Crown Zellerbach, once a major paper manufacturer in San Francisco, was the first company to install the "random computing and control access mode storage" machine (RAMAC). The first hard disk appeared on IBM's computer.

The official release date of RAMAC is September 13th 1956. It weighs 1 tons, and the system of 50 24 inch disks can save 5MB data.

Porter worked in Crown company. The company chose RAMAC because they want to produce a lot of computer storage card paper for IBM.

"Once we have customers interested in it, I will take them to the three level computer room on Market street," Porter said.

You can see people coming and going in the room like a show.

I took the customers 10 times to see this machine.

Over the past 50 years, many changes have taken place in hard drives.

Manufacturers now sell hard drives that can store 750GB, which is 150 thousand times the capacity of RAMAC, but its weight is only a few ounces, and its size is only 3.5 inches.

The hard disk that can store 1TB will be on sale at the end of this year or early next year.

Seagate's chief technology officer, Mark Kryder, said: "since the birth of RAMAC, the density of hard disks has evolved 65 million times. I estimate that from the real limit of disk density, we have three magnets."

Hard disks have become more and more popular.

According to University of California at Berkeley, "how much information is there?"

According to the research report, between 1992 and 2003, about 1 billion 200 million hard drives were sold, with a capacity of about 41 thousand and 400 EB (Exa-byte) and 1EB of 1 billion GB capacity.

The 5 EB is enough to preserve all the voices of mankind since its birth to 2002.

This study points out that more and more data are stored in hard disks, not discs, paper or other media.

Disk/Trend expects that about 450 million to 460 million hard drives will be sold this year.

The growth of hard disk comes from people's demand for servers, personal computers and data storage. Besides, hard disk manufacturers are also expanding beyond the personal computer market.

Bill Healy, senior vice president of Hitachi global storage technologies, said that high-end TV sets with built-in drives, TOYOTA cars and Benz Corp plans to launch luxury cars equipped with hard disk navigation and entertainment systems to drive demand for hard drives.

A digital video recorder like TiVo can't have no hard disk.

Home servers responsible for video and music play may become the necessary products in the future.

Healy says that hard drives also take the place of magnetic tapes and become carriers for permanent preservation of data.

The reality of the hard disk industry is that the cost is high, the technology changes rapidly, the competitors are numerous, and the users who refuse to spend more than half of the money are short. The life cycle of the products is shortened. All of these make it hard for the manufacturers to survive in the hard disk industry.

In the rush hour of the hard disk industry in 1980s, there were about 76 companies, including outsiders like Seiko and CITIZEN watch company, who used to build hard drives.

Porter said, "now, if you count carefully, you will find that there are only 8 companies in the market, some of which are quite small."

Three big hard disk manufacturers, Seagate, western data and Hitachi occupy 75% of the hard disk market.

However, the survival of the top companies is not easy.

Although Seagate and Western data are still profitable, Hitachi has suffered losses in recent quarters, and all hard disk companies have low gross margins.

At first, people considered using a magnetic cylinder as a carrier, but there was a problem in the cylinder. To preserve the data of 5MB, a magnetic cylinder with a height of 17 feet was needed.

Rey Johnson invented the concept of multilayer disk.

The contribution of Rey Johnson is unique in the hard disk industry, which makes the hard disk area shrink.

In addition to making IBM a leader in the hard disk industry, the emergence of RAMAC also prompted IBM to build its first hard disk factory in St. Jones, because IBM realized that hard disk technology knowledge is not easily replicated.

Although IBM eventually sold its hard disk business to Hitachi, the blue giant has become the largest Silicon Valley company with the largest land area.

In the past 10 years, although the hard disk industry has undergone mergers and acquisitions and changes in strength, the competition in this industry has not changed.

Hard disk manufacturers are currently focusing on flash memory.

In 2001, apple put the 1.8 Inch Hitachi hard drive into the first iPod.

Hard disk industry is one of the shocks.

Apple Corp has also become the first company to adopt 1 inch micro hard disk in large scale.

Now, the micro hard disk is booming.

In order to survive, hard disk manufacturers have started producing their own heads and disks, rather than buying them from third party vendors.