From a Gigabyte to a Terabyte - 10 Years of Storage Development

From a Gigabyte to a Terabyte - 10 Years of Computer Storage

Over 50 years ago, IBM developed a hard disk that was the size of several wardrobes and had a capacity of only five megabytes. This was the very first hard disk. Today, hard disks the size of standard paperbacks with capacities of one terabyte (1,000,000 megabytes) or more are nothing out of the ordinary.

In the last 10 years, we have seen formats come and go in the storage scene, but if there is anything that is consistent, it is this: capacities increase, and form factors shrink. Here is an example to prove our point. 10 years ago, 5.25" hard disk drives breached the one gigabyte mark. Last year, Seagate announced a 3.5" hard disk with 1.5 terabytes capacity.

You might think this is all amazing, but what is even more amazing is the fact that the primary technology behind hard disks has hardly changed in the past decade. It still consists of a read-write head and a spinning platter. That is not to say that hard disk technology has been stagnant, rather the changes made often go unnoticed as they are deep under the hood.

For instance, one of the most important developments of modern hard disks is the implementation of perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology. Previously, most hard disks made use of giant magnetoresistive (GMR) recording technology. Now, the basis behind how PMR and GMR works is the same (rate of change of magnetism), except that in PMR, the poles of the magnetic elements, which represent bits, are aligned perpendicular to the surface of the disk platter. The advantage of doing so is that a greater number of magnetic elements can now be stored on the same area; this in turn increases storage density, which in turn leads to larger capacity hard disks.

Apart from larger capacity hard disks, PMR is also useful in shrinking hard disks. With denser disk platters, a similar capacity hard disk can now be squeezed into a smaller form factor. The application of this can be most readily appreciated when looking at portable media devices of today. How did you think Apple managed to squeeze a 160GB hard disk into its iPods?

In addition to changes in form factor and capacity, hard disks also underwent a change in interface technology from Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) to SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment). SATA was introduced in 2003 to supersede IDE, because of its many advantages. It provides faster data transfers on a high-speed serial bus, supports hot swapping, port multiplexing, is more reliable and is easier to manage (uses thinner cables). The original SATA standard has however been upgraded in recent times. SATA II (3.0Gbps) provides not only a higher throughput, but also supports Native Command Queuing (NCQ) and better hot-plugging support.

Although throughput is increased to 300MB/s with SATA II, it actually isn't very useful in practice because of the mechanical limitations of a hard disk. You see, a hard disk is only as fast as its access speed, which in turn is dependent on the rate at which the hard disk spins. And this is the Achilles' heel of the conventional hard disk.

The speed at which the hard disk can spin is, like all other things in our world, limited by the omnipotent laws of physics. Without going into too much detail, hard disks that spin faster are not feasible because they will require more power, and more importantly, they would need to be sufficiently sturdy so as to withstand the tremendous amounts of g-forces that will be generated by such a spinning platter.

And this is where solid state drives (SSD) come in. Although they were first developed decades back (in a different form), they've only recently become widely available thanks to a surge in adoption of various flash memory technologies in the industry that have significantly lowered manufacturing costs. Even so, SSDs remain extremely expensive and analysts predict that it wouldn't be until 2010 before they become affordable enough for the masses. Even then, traditional HDDs are likely to remain cheaper and thus we don't yet see the HDD becoming obsolete in the near time frame.

Of course, storage is not just about hard disks. There are many other forms of secondary storage such as optical discs and flash memory that have seen many development in the past decade. Blu-ray discs are slowly but surely replacing DVDs and flash memory can now be found in a myriad of devices ranging from mobile phones to portable media devices that have totally changed the lifestyles of consumers (for the better). We'll take a closer look at the various blips in the 10-year radar shortly.

Clearly, man's hunger for storage cannot be satiated. And if there is anything throughout the history of computer storage that is consistent, it is this: we'll continue to push the boundaries of what is both technologically and mechanically possible. Here's to another ten years of great innovation.

1997 - 2000

1997

• At this point, traditional floppy disks were almost completely obsolete. Not only were they slow, the capacity they offered were just too little for the needs for consumers of the time.
• DVDs were introduced to the masses. DVD players and DVD movies became available and were all the rage. In comparison with its predecessor, the Video CD, it provided video and audio quality that was many times better. Today, it is still widely used. Many movies are still released in DVD format, and many games and software still come on DVD discs.

1998

• Syquest, who previously had a large share of the removable hard disk market, found itself challenged by Iomega and Superdisk. They eventually filed for bankruptcy and were subsequently acquired by Iomega a year later.
• Iomega themselves were facing problems of their own, namely dwindling sales, competition from Superdisk, and more seriously, reliability issues with their disks. This, coupled with the proliferation of recordable optical discs, and later USB flash drives meant that Iomega probably never had the chance to recover its former glory days.
  In addition, Zip drives were not as ubiquitous and cheap as one would have liked. More computers had optical drives installed than Zip drives; and in terms of cost per megabyte, rewritable discs were overwhelmingly cheaper and all of this made Zip disks an unattractive option from this time frame moving forward. They were definitely a hit when they first arrived, but competing technologies and simpler storage options won the consumers once these had the capacity and cost advantage.
• 1998 also saw the birth of one of the world's first hard drives to employ Giant Magneto-Resistive technology (GMR) - the IBM DeskStar 14GXP 14.4 GB . We had one in our labs and we were pleased by its performance. Not only did it offer huge capacity (at that time), it was also fast and quiet. If there was anything we didn't like, it was its price - S$798.

1999

• These days, memory cards have become part and parcel of out daily life in some way or another and are omnipresent in several of our daily gadgets. However, Secure Digital, arguably the most popular and widely used format now, was born in 1999. Over the next few years, it will spawn smaller, higher capacity varieties such as the SDHC and microSDHC vairants
• Even with memory cards, storage drives are still a popular means of transporting large amounts of data. One popular format that was often sought after for reliable large capacity storage back in 1999 was magneto-optical drives and we had a Fujitsu DynaMO 640SD/1300SD in our labs for testing.

2000

• The first USB flash drive was made commercially available. The name "ThumbDrive" that we are so familiar with today came from Trek, a Singapore company, whose USB flash drive was about the size of your thumb and was hence aptly named "Trek ThumbDrive". Somehow, the name stuck, and today USB flash drives are known worldwide simply as thumbdrives.
  We reviewed Trek's thumbdrive back in 2000 and were impressed by its size and ease of use. We also noted in the review that what users really wanted was a storage device that can be used across a multitude of systems, and the thumbdrive provided just that.

• Thanks to the proliferation of recordable optical media and USB flash drives, Zip disks and drives are now rendered completely obsolete.

• That year we tested a very interesting and innovative gadget, probably the first of its kind - Romtec's Trios Multi-IDE Selector (RX-910T3) . The idea behind this gadget is that it'll allow you to boot from the hard drive of your choice. What use is this you might ask? With this, you can install different operating systems on different hard drives, and then later choose which hard drive to boot from with just a button push. Of course there's always the BIOS equivalent for such adjustments, but it's just cumbersome. Being such a nifty device, it got the full 5 stars from us.

• Hitachi, in partnership with LG, formed the data storage company, Hitachi-LG Data Storage. The company was formed with the specific purpose of manufacturing optical data storage devices such as CD and DVD drives for desktops and notebook OEMs. As of July 2006, they have started developing Blu-ray drives.

2003 - 2008

2003

• Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) was introduced to replace the older IDE interface (Integrated Drive Electronics). SATA's main advantages over PATA are faster transfer of data, hot swapping, thinner cables and hence better ventilation within the casing, and lastly, more reliable operation.
  Still, SATA was not without its flaws, which led to the introduction of SATA II or SATA 3.0Gbps. SATA II's main improvement is the implementation of Native Command Queuing (NCQ), which helps improve multi-tasking performance. Its throughput of 300MB/s is also twice that of its predecessor.

• Shortly after SATA was introduced, Seagate rolled out the world's first SATA hard drive - Seagate Barracuda ATA V Plus (7200 RPM) . We were not too impressed by its performance, seeing that it even lost to some of the older parallel ATA hard drives . Clearly, the drive was not yet taking full advantage of the added bandwidth that SATA provided.

• Hot on the footsteps of Seagate, Western Digital announced the Western Digital Raptor WD360GD (SATA) . Spinning at 10,000 RPM, it offered SCSI-like performance at a more affordable price. As such, we saw no reason not to give it the full 5 stars.

• The world's first 15,000 RPM drive was finally launched by Seagate - the Seagate Cheetah 15K.3. However, the 15,000 segment was not theirs alone as Maxtor too had their own 15,000 RPM drive - the Maxtor Atlas 15K. Hence, we put these two head-to-head to see which was best. - Maxtor Atlas 15K vs. Seagate Cheetah 15K.3 . The Cheetah lived up to its name and trumped the Atlas in almost all of the tests. It was so good that we ended up giving it our Best Performance award.
• 2003 saw many improvements in hard drive technology and there was more to come, the Hitachi Travelstar 7K60 (7200RPM) was not only the first 2.5-inch hard drive, but also the first to use GMR to achieve a disk areal density of up to 50Gbits/sq.inch. In short, this is a laptop hard disk offering desktop levels of performance. Needless to say, it garnered the full 5 stars from us.

2004

• Western Digital announced the Western Digital Raptor WD740GD (SATA) which was a further improvement on the earlier Western Digital Raptor WD360GD (SATA) . And like its predecessor, it was fast, so much so that it was probably the fastest available hard drive available for desktops at that time. 5 stars!
• Although flash memory had, by then, became the storage solution of choice amongst many, they continued to lack in terms of raw capacity. In light of this, Seagate introduced a very unique little product - Seagate 5.0GB Pocket Hard Drive - so called because it was small enough to fit into your pockets.
• What's more amazing, however, was that it offered 5GB of storage. How is that possible you might wonder? The answer to this is that it employed a special 1-inch hard drive. Equally amazing was that despite its small size, it offered rather decent performance, and the only thing that kept it from the full 5 stars was its exorbitant price.

• Toshiba, together with Samsung, formed the Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology Corporation. This company specializes in manufacturing optical disc drives. Curiously, Toshiba owns 51% of its company stock, whereas the remaining 49% was owned by Samsung.

2005

• Toshiba became the first company to manufacture a commercial hard disk making use of Perpendicular Magnetic Recording technology (PMR). PMR is a technology that is capable of increasing the storage density of hard disks by up to three times. Seagate soon followed suit and even mentioned that its subsequent models would be made using this technology.
• One of the most interesting storage solutions we reviewed all year was the Gigabyte i-RAM , a storage card which employed standard computer RAM as a hard disk. While the idea of using solid state memory as a hard disk was not new, credit must be given where credit was due, so kudos to Gigabyte for being the one of the first to come up with a product like this.
  As expected, the i-RAM smashed, trampled, and then spat on the 10,000 RPM Western Digital Raptor that was its benchmarking partner. For sheer speed, it was unmatched, and as such, it was awarded our Most Innovative Product Award.

2006

• The first Blu-ray and HD-DVD players and movies were sold. A single layer, single sided HD-DVD can hold up 15GB worth of data, over three times more than a standard DVD. A single layer, single sided Blu-ray disc on the other hand can hold 25GB, about five times as much.
• SD secured their position as the leading memory card by announcing the SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity). These high memory cards could provide up to 32GB of storage, much more than SD's competitors had to offer.
• Not wanting to be left out, Sony and NEC together formed Sony NEC Optiarc, a company that also specializes in manufacturing optical disc drives for OEM desktops and notebooks.
• Maxtor, the world's third largest manufacturer of hard disks, was acquired by Seagate for US$1.9 billion. This made Seagate the undisputed juggernaut amongst hard disk manufacturers.

2007

• Consumer 3.5" hard disks finally breached the 1 terabyte mark. The first consumer 1TB drive was Hitachi's Deskstar 7K1000 and it was made possible because of PMR technology.

2008

• On January 4th, Warner Bros. pledged support to Blu-ray, stating that it would stop releasing movies on the HD-DVD format after May 2008. With the largest movie studio backing Blu-ray, HD-DVD was officially dead.

• Seagate, using PMR technology, announced a 1.5TB hard disk. It marked a 500GB jump in capacity, the largest ever in the last five decades of hard disk evolution.

Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.