The storage mode with "magnetism" as the storage medium appeared long before the hard disk appeared, such as floppy disk. However, due to the limitation of capacity and easy storage, the development of floppy disks soon reached the limit. Although there are high-density floppy disks such as Zip disks, they are only a flash in the pan and are hard to see now. In the last century, a metal-coated storage device was not so much a hard disk as a "hard bucket" in the strict sense. It consists of a magnetized metal cylinder and several magnetic heads. When working, the metal cylinder rotates, the magnetic head is stationary, and data is read. This design related to paper tape was not successful and was quickly eliminated by more advanced design concepts.
Application environment of IBM 350 RAMAC
1956- 1966
The first hard disk in the world was designed and manufactured by IBM in 1956. This hard disk product called IBM 350 Ramac (Controlled Random Access Method) is huge, but its capacity is only 5MB, and a total of 50 24-inch discs are used. This is unimaginable now, but it was already a quite advanced product at that time, and its capacity was "massive" compared with the computer application mode of the same period.
At that time, the concept of PC was not born, that is to say, it was impossible to own a computer in the name of "individual". At that time, most computers were used in the military field or large enterprises. At that time, the main users of IBM 350 RAMAC were airlines, medical enterprises, banks and aerospace.
In the first decade of the hard disk's birth, the application fields of computers were not extensive, and the application fields of hard disks were limited accordingly, which led to the relatively slow development of hard disks. This situation did not begin to improve until the late 1960s. The reason is not that the application drives the demand for storage space, but that the IBM 350 RAMAC is too large and its physical structure leads to a relatively short life.
1967- 1976
1968, the first historical breakthrough in the history of hard disk development was completed by —IBM, which successfully developed the "warm disk" technology, namely Winchester technology, mainly to improve the physical structure of hard disk. Simply summarized as: sealed, fixed and high-speed rotating plating disk, the magnetic head moves along the radial direction of the disk, and the magnetic head is suspended above the high-speed rotating disk without direct contact with the disk.