29 November 2010
Tracing the roots of our present-day tiny data storage media devices is a fascinating tale of man's ingenuity. What we have now would have been called nothing but science fiction by our predecessors.
Our generation can only go as far back as the cassette tape but little do we know that there have been attempts made even before that, for efficient data storage devices. Like the clumsy, fumbling attempts of man to fly by means of balloons, the history or development of data storage media is a tale worth telling.
The first hard drive which could store 2 GB was the size of a refrigerator and cost up to $140,000.
Selectron Tube
The Selectron tube was a 1ox3 inches data storage medium which was developed in 1946 but never really took off because of production problems. It was as long as a one-foot ruler and as thick as a big flashlight. It can hold only up to 32 to 512 bytes, which, with such bulky size and a computed cost of about $500 each, would not have been marketable.
Punch Cards
Punch cards have been developed shortly after the demise of the Selectron tube but the underlying principle has been in use for mechanized textile looms in the textile industry as far back as 1725. Punch cards were also used in organs and other instruments and in some voting machines.
A punch card, true to its name, is a card or stiff paper with holes or punches. Digital data is stored by the absence or presence of holes at predefined positions.
Punched Tape
Similar to a punch card, the punched tape was a data storage medium which is a roll of tape punched with holes. Its beginnings can also be traced to mechanized looms. Each row on the tape has different configurations of punched holes which correspond to a single character. This can be used both to input data into early computers and also to output data.
Magnetic Drum Memory
This was literally a drum form of data storage device and was not in any way handy. For all its size, it can only hold 10 kilobytes but was widely used in the 1950's and 60's as the main working memory of computers. Later, magnetic drum memories of only 16 inches in length were made.
Hard Disk Drive
The first ever hard disk drive was the IBM Model 350 Disk File which came with the IBM computer in 1956. It was also big as it contained 50 pieces of 24-inch storage discs which together can hold about 5 million characters or only 5 MB. The first hard drive which could store 2 GB was developed in the 1980's but came in the size of a refrigerator and at a limiting price of $80,000 to $140,000.
After these early forms of data storage media came what we now recognise in our current generation: the laser disc, the cassette tape and the floppy disks. Certainly, the history of data storage has come a long way and the technology behind it shows no signs of slowing yet.
Whilst most of the data recovery we get these days tend to focus around failed hard drives or damaged USB sticks, here at Kingdom Data Recovery we're able to rescue data from a wide range of data formats - speak to us for details about how to get your files back.
