sign in sign up
<<
Home , Hard disk drive

BT Infographics

Punched 2.76m Card (1832) In the early 20th century, punched Hard or Floppy? cards were the primary medium for It has been reported that multiple US government agencies Average entry, storage, still run on old technology – 8- floppy disks, which were man’s and processing. considered to be obsolete by the end of the 1970s. As Singapore height embarks on its Smart Nation ambitions, the storage of data will be It takes a stack (1928) a key component of the landscape. From the humble punched of 1,730 8" floppy A vital technology in card to the use of DNA, The Business Times takes a look at the disks – 2.76m in early height – to equal development, it evolution of storage devices over the years. the capacity of allowed data to be your ubiquitous mechanically 2GB flash drive. created, stored for long periods, and to be rapidly accessed. TOP SECRET

Hard Disk Drive Psst! There’s this (1956) The first drive (from band around town IBM) was approxi- Index and they haven’t had mately the size of hole two refrigerators and any gigs yet... stored 3.75 mega- . Drive spindle holes Compact Cassette (1962) Originally designed for dictation machines, its uses ranged from portable audio to for early . Head access holes (1971) Before hard disks Relief notches Write project became affordable to notch the general popula- tion, floppy disks Actual size were used to store a computer's .

Compact Discs (1982) The first few CD 8 inch 3½ inch Thumb Micro SD players cost some floppy disk floppy disk SD card drive card Drive US$1,000 back then - 1.2 MB 1.2 MB 256 MB 256 MB 2GB 15GB equivalent to US$2,476 today.

CD-R (1988) The onset of recordable compact discs rendered floppy disks obsolete.

Zip Drive (1994) Though the Zip Cost per drive sold well GB (Then) US $4,325 US $3,424 US $400 US $600 US $20 <15GB (free) initially, it never surpassed the Cost per US $12,545 US $9,931 US $509 US $788 US $22 <15GB (free) popularity of the GB (Now, ubiquitous 3.5” adjusted for inflation) floppy disks.

DVD (1995) SD Card USB Flash Drive The Cloud Future DNA Storage had the same (1999) (2000) (2008) Processes are being dimensions as CDs Flash-memory technology The ubiquitous Thumb- The introduction of developed to store data as but could store six allows electronic devices Drive was invented allows users to scale up as computing DNA for thousands, even times more data. to save data without by a Singapore firm, needs increase and then scale down millions, of years. relying on a spinning disc. Trek 2000 International. again as demands decrease. Source: BBC, CNN, GoCanvas, RadioShack BT Graphics: Andrea Lee & Renald Yeo