15 Years Of Hard Drive History: Capacities Outran Performance
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Page 1:Where Has All The Power Gone?
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Page 2:Hard Drives: 40 MB To 750 GB - 3,500 To 10,000 RPM
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Page 3:Moving To FAT32 And UltraATA/33: Quantum Fireball ST3.2A (1996)
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Page 4:512 kB Cache: IBM DTTA-351010 (1998)
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Page 5:Quick & Quiet: Seagate Barracuda ATA IV (2003)
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Page 6:Areal Density Analysis
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Page 7:Performance Analysis
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Page 8:Time Required To Write A Full Platter
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Page 9:Why Is Hard Drive Performance Crucial?
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Page 10:Test Results
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Page 11:Conclusion
Areal Density Analysis
The increase in hard drive capacity is impressive: in the last 15 years, storage density has gone up 10,000x!
The storage industry is still finding ways to keep increasing storage densities. The latest technology is called Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR), which moves magnetization of particles from a horizontal to a vertical alignment, so more bits can fit the same space.
If you take 1991's maximum capacity of 130 MB and compare it to today's 750 GB per hard drive, capacities have increased by a factor of 5,700 in the last 15 years. If you compare the per-platter capacity, the difference is even larger.
Summary
- Where Has All The Power Gone?
- Hard Drives: 40 MB To 750 GB - 3,500 To 10,000 RPM
- Moving To FAT32 And UltraATA/33: Quantum Fireball ST3.2A (1996)
- 512 kB Cache: IBM DTTA-351010 (1998)
- Quick & Quiet: Seagate Barracuda ATA IV (2003)
- Areal Density Analysis
- Performance Analysis
- Time Required To Write A Full Platter
- Why Is Hard Drive Performance Crucial?
- Test Results
- Conclusion
Quantum's Fireball was available about five years after the 40 GB Maxtor drive discussed above,
It should be 40MB, obviously