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The Birth, Boom and Bust of the Hard Disk Drive

Asianometry・16 minutes read

Reynold B. Johnson led IBM's pioneering work on the first hard drive, RAMAC, introduced in 1956. The HDD industry saw significant evolution fueled by technology advancements, venture capital investments, and intense competition, leading to major players like Seagate, Western Digital, and Toshiba dominating the market by 1990.

Insights

  • The development of the hard drive industry was driven by continuous innovation in components like platters and read/write heads, allowing for significant improvements in storage capacity and performance over time.
  • The intense competition within the HDD market, fueled by factors like increasing demand for storage, lack of brand loyalty, and aggressive pricing strategies by PC assemblers, led to globalization, venture capital investments, and technological advancements, ultimately benefiting consumers through increased data density and market consolidation.

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Recent questions

  • What was the first hard drive called?

    RAMAC

  • Who founded Seagate?

    Alan Shugart

  • What is the core component of a 5.25 inch HDD?

    Platters

  • What revolutionized the HDD's read/write head?

    Giant magnetoresistance (GMR)

  • When did Seagate go public?

    1981

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Summary

00:00

Evolution of Hard Disk Drives: A History

  • In 1952, IBM appointed Reynold B. Johnson to lead a research lab in San Jose, where he worked on various projects, including a random access processing system to replace tub files.
  • Johnson's team explored magnetic recording systems, eventually settling on a stack of rotating magnetic disks with read/write heads mounted on a common actuator.
  • In 1956, IBM introduced the RAMAC, the first hard drive, consisting of 50 iron oxide-coated disks, costing a quarter of a million dollars and holding 4.4 megabytes.
  • The Winchester drive, introduced by IBM in 1973, sealed off disks, arms, and motors in a dust-proof container, increasing storage capacity and reducing cost-per-megabyte by 30%.
  • Alan Shugart, a key figure in the development of the Winchester drive, founded Seagate in 1980, releasing the ST506 hard drive with 5 megabytes of storage, surpassing floppy disks.
  • The core components of a 5.25 inch HDD include platters, motors, read-write heads, and supporting electronics, with data stored on tracks on double-sided platters made from glass substrates.
  • The HDD market commoditized due to the constant demand for more storage, lack of brand value, and PC assemblers playing HDD makers against each other for the lowest price.
  • PC assemblers like IBM sourced HDDs from startups like Seagate, MiniScribe, and IMI for their systems, demanding qualification programs and refusing long-term contracts.
  • The HDD industry allowed new firms to enter by tweaking critical components like platters and read/write heads to create improvements in storage capacity and performance.
  • The engineering behind HDDs has evolved significantly, with heads flying as close as 3 nanometers above disk surfaces, requiring substantial capital expenditure for production and testing.

13:46

Evolution of HDD Industry: Innovation and Globalization

  • In 1983, Rodime, a Scottish firm, patented the 3.5 inch HDD format, which gained popularity in 1986 when Conner Peripherals started selling it in large quantities to Compaq.
  • Giant magnetoresistance (GMR), a Nobel-winning quantum effect, revolutionized the HDD's read/write head, with IBM commercializing it in 1997, followed by Seagate and Read-Rite in 1999, and Toshiba in 1998.
  • Seagate went public in 1981, raising $26 million and paving the way for venture capital investments in the HDD industry, with 12 VC-backed HDD manufacturers by mid-1983.
  • The influx of venture capital led to a surge in HDD startups, with 43 manufacturers raising $400 million from 1977 to 1984, and 21 startups raising over $270 million in 1983 and 1984 alone.
  • US firms initially dominated the HDD industry, but competition from Japanese and European companies led to globalization, with Seagate outsourcing assembly to Singapore, making it the world's largest HDD producer by 1990.
  • The intense competition and globalization in the HDD industry led to significant consumer benefits, with data density growing 20 times from 1976 to 1987, and the market witnessing numerous exits and mergers, leaving Seagate, Western Digital, and Toshiba as the major players.
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