The U.S. Census in 1890 became the first big data storage operation and it used manually punched cards to store and sort the collected data. The company that was to become IBM was formed then and they became the major source of innovations for data storage for many years. They standardized the 80 column format in 1929. By 1949 the Model IBM029 was a machine that produced punch cards for inputting data and programs into main frame computers. In the 1950’s a major shift began as large tape drive units became the way to store data for computers. The tape was 1400 ft. long, 1.5 inch wide and contained 100 characters per ft. (Ray Ives notes, “I personally used these in the Nike Fire Control Radar Systems that controlled the missile through the target tracking Radar and the missile tracking Radar systems. They were very large.”)

The next major change came in 1956 when IBM introduced disk drives with random access data storage for their main frame computers.
The IBM 350 had all of 4.4 MegaBytes of data storage on fifty 24- inch disc platters which spun at 1200RPM with a data transfer rate of 8,800 characters/second. It weighed 1.5 tons.

Starting in 1962 the IBM1311 was used with 2 million characters per disk drive pack. Constant improvements were made with new models. The IBM 3340 came out in 1973. This “Winchester” drive had two 30MB modules . It was a desk sized unit with two 4-10 inch disks pack modules, one removable with its own heads, a new feature. This feature is how today’s hard disk drives are configured.

Floppy Disks
The IBM 8” Floppy came out in 1971 as a read only device. By 1973 it had replaced the punch card as the primary computer input method. In 1976, the 5.25” format was developed for Wang Laboratories by Shugart Associates, who would become Seagate Technologies. It was single sided with about 110 KB of storage . By the early 1980’s, 720KB of storage was the standard. The 3.5” 1.44 MB floppy with a rigid case came about in 1983.

Personal Computers
The first personal computer was the MITS Altair 8800 which came in a kit. It was introduced in 1975. It had an optional 5-in.¼or 8-in. floppy disk drive, but most used cassette tapes as their data storage medium. The first Apple computer came out in 1976, and it was also in the form of a kit. The Apple II came out in 1977 assembled with two 5.25-in. floppy drives with 113 KB capacity each, but no hard disk drive. The original IBM PC also had two 5-inch-160KB single sided floppies as its only storage option in 1981 (DOS 1.0). The first hard disk option for personnel computers was a Seagate ST506 - 5MB disk drive introduced in 1980. The first hard disk included as a standard feature in a PC was the Apple Lisa in 1983 with a 5MB hard disk drive, cost $10,000. Two months later the IBM-XT, was released with an
included 10 MB Seagate hard disk drive, cost $7,545.

PC DATA STORAGE TODAY

Internal Disk Drives
After many changes and innovations (MFM, RLL, IDE), SATA II drives now dominate the market, with capacities from 350 GB to 3 terabytes and a 3GB/sec transfer rate. They can be purchased for about $ 68 to $130 depending on capacity. SATA III, with a 6GB/sec transfer rate, are now beginning to appear, but at $300+ for a 2 terabyte capacity and they require a motherboard or expansion card (PCIe 1x) to provide that capability. One terabyte can hold 424 two-hour quality DVD movies or 1500 hours of VHS movies.

Hard drives can be independent or can be combined in a multiple disk Redundant Array of Independent Drives setup known as a RAID configuration. Most motherboards today include these options. Several different arrangements are possible. RAID 0 combines two identical drives and has the combined capacity of both. Files are divided into strips 128K long and are saved to or loaded from both discs simultaneously to cut the loading time in half. RAID 1 uses two identical disks, but only uses the capacity of one of the drives for primary storage. It uses the other disk as an automatic duplicate of the first, a mirrored drive, as a constant backup of the primary disk. In a RAID 5 arrangement, 3 or more identical disks are used and the system sees about two-thirds of the combined capacity of all the disks as a single disk drive. Files are again cut up into strips of 128 KB, but multiple copies of these strips are saved across the disk array. Should any one disk fail, it can be quickly replaced, called “hot swapping,” with no loss of data.

External Disk Drives
Many options are now available for attaching 3-½ inch hard disk drive capacity to your computer. Most use a USB 2, a Firewire 800 or an eSATA cable to make the connection. They use standard 3-½ inch drives inside an enclosure and require a separate power supply to operate.
A more portable 2-½ inch disk drive version also exists that gets its power from the USB 2 cable. Sometimes it takes two USB 2 ports to supply enough power and a serial two port USB 2 cable is available. USB 3 has more than enough power to operate this type of disk drive and it transfers data at a rate up to 5 GB/sec., 10x that of USB 2. USB 3 does require a special port that is now appearing on new motherboards or an expansion card added to your older computer using a PCIe x1 slot. The USB 3 portable disk drives are also now starting to appear with capacities from 350 GB up to 1.5 terabytes. A portable 500 GB USB 2 drive currently sells for $89.00. A one terabyte portable USB 3 drive currently sells for $209.00.

Network Accessible Storage
(NAS) also exist outside your computer in a large case. It can contain multiple 3-½ inch (2 to 8) disk drives in a RAID arrangement with a separate power supply. It connects to your computer by an eSATA cable or to many computers via a Network CAT 6 cable. These are generally more expensive and are designed for the individual or small business with huge data storage needs.

Flash Drives
The Flash drive is a solid state device, not really a disk drive, that is very cheap and is very useful. The USB 1, USB 2, or the new
Super Speed USB 3 port is where they connect to your computer. They require no additional power supply and can easily transfer files from one computer to another or quickly add some capacity to an older laptop. Capacities of 1GB to 64 GB are readily
available, with 4 GB being the magic price point at about $10.00 or less. Many have special features for security or adaptability purposes.

Solid State Drives
These devices are like a flash drive using NAND memory, but they come with larger capacities, like up to 256 GB. They are designed to replace the hard disk drives inside your computer. They come in 2-½ inch size format and can directly replace a laptop’s hard disk drive. In a desktop situation you need a tray or special arrangement to install them. Most use SATA II power connectors and SATA II data transfer cables. They have no moving parts so are very quiet to operate and will have no mechanical breakdown. Solid State drives (SSD) also transfer data four to five times faster than your typical hard disk drive. The idea is to use a small SSD for your operating system and frequently used files, then store your larger data files and less used programs on a traditional hard disk drive. Some hybrid models combine these two functions into one device. Often, two SSDs are set up as a RAID 1 arrangement for very fast transfer rates. These devices store data in larger blocks than a traditional hard disk drive so a problem with “Disk Slack” can occur. Many come with additional unreferenced capacity to compensate for this problem. A “Trim” command helps to alleviate the problem, so make sure that your SSD will respond to that command; not all do. One of the hot controllers now is called “Sand Force.“

Two types of SSDs exist. The Multiple Layer Cell (MLC) are the most common and are cheaper, at about $250 for 80 GB, They are, however, prone to wearing out in about five years based on write usage. Single Layer Cell (SLC) do not have that problem and come in larger sizes, but cost more: like $2,000 for a 128 GB device.

Cloud Storage
The latest data storage option is referred to as the ”cloud.” This is just storing your data on a server that you connect to over the Internet. The concept has been around for several years, but now software programs are also available to you from that same server. Microsoft Live is a free service and it includes 25 GB of Internet storage in the cloud (SkyDrive) and access to versions of Office and Multimedia programs. Your files are accessible from any computer connected to the internet and if your computer or hard disk breaks down your files are not lost, but can always be retrieved from the “cloud.”