658
Computer drive sizes over the years (lemmy.zip)
submitted 4 weeks ago by ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.zip to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world
76 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I just got a new laptop today and when I saw the ssd it blew my mind. Most of my old drives are like the second from left and it's what I think of as a normal drive, buying a standard ssd still feels small to me. But look at that tiny thing to the right! It's the size of a postage stamp!

Assuming I managed to find the right specs (it is a Microscience hh-1050): The monster on the far left is from 1990, holds 40mb, read/write of 0.625mb/s, and weighs almost exactly 2kg. The baby on the far right I got in the mail today, holds 1tb, read/write of 5150mb/s, and weighs about 2.85 grams.

So we're looking at 25,000 times more storage, 8,240 times faster, and 1/700th the weight! And the one on the right is just 1tb, they make one that same model but 2tb. I can barely believe it exists even though I'm literally holding it in my hands.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] nonentity@sh.itjust.works 90 points 4 weeks ago

5MB of storage in 1956.

5MB storage in 1956

[-] Sabin10@lemmy.world 22 points 4 weeks ago

That would hold 1.66 copies of war and peace.

[-] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 21 points 4 weeks ago

ASCII wasn't around then, so it would perhaps be stored in 5-bit ITA2, or 6/7-bit FIELDATA. So likely a 5/8 to 7/8 space savings (unless the numbers are for compressed War and Peace).

[-] WillFord27@lemmy.world 13 points 4 weeks ago

They could've just compressed it using 7zip. Text files compress really small!

/j

[-] tetris11@feddit.uk 12 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

A space ship descends and lands outside my door, and and a benevolent Alien pops out and hands me a 512 MB USB stick.

"I crafted this for your species, and made sure it's compatible with your hardware standards. It contains the sum total knowledge of all life in the universe and can be used to accelerate your species to the next plane of existence."

I thank him tearfully and he departs with a warm smile, ascending back up into the soon-to-be-knowable cosmos from when he came.

I plug the stick into my machine, and check out the directory. Inside are two files:

 105 MB   knowledge.tar.piidx
 328 KB   README.txt

I open up the readme file to learn more about the PIIDX file format so that I can uncompress the sum total knowledge of all existence. General gist:

  • Uses a compression algorithm with an infinite dictionary based on prime numbers
  • Uses a storage/retrieval algorithm based on the digits of Pi

Realise quickly that the file will never be opened in my lifetime

[-] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 8 points 4 weeks ago

Once you have one copy on there it would be awfully wasteful to fill the rest up with a 0.66 copy though.

[-] the_trash_man@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago

You could probably store more in a filing cabinet with paper

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] MudMan@fedia.io 46 points 4 weeks ago

Wait, 1tb?

You're leaving impact on the table, I have plenty of 1tb micro SD cards.

[-] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 44 points 4 weeks ago

Those drives typically have some pretty dreadful read/write speeds (for a computer). Maybe once SD Express is figured out we'll get fast and good Micro SD cards at a high capacity.

[-] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 17 points 4 weeks ago

And they crap out so quickly. I can't even count the number of SD cards I've had to throw in the trash. I don't think I've ever had a 2.5" or 3.5" drive completely crap out on me (though I have had bad SMART data indicative of a dying drive) and I have been running a media server with dozens of TBs for over a decade now.

[-] Knuschberkeks@leminal.space 2 points 4 weeks ago

Invest in Samsung Pro Endurane SD cards, they last a lot longer. I believe Sandisk has a similar product but I have never used it.

[-] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 weeks ago

There are way too many counterfeit cards mixed in with the legitimate stock out there for me to bother spending too much on any single card. I typically go for the midrange offerings and roll the dice.

[-] Knuschberkeks@leminal.space 3 points 4 weeks ago

I don't know What everyone does to get counterfeit cards all the time. I never had one. Are they just less prevalent in Europe than in America? Maybe it's because I don't buy them online?

[-] TheTetrapod@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

Probably the latter, I doubt any sizable brick and mortar store is likely to be sent a batch of counterfeits from their distributor.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] MudMan@fedia.io 8 points 4 weeks ago

I mean, those work fine and are fast. You mean we'll get those for cheap.

In any case, the image is about physical dimensions, and SD cards are tiny! Considering we're comparing to a 40 MB mechanical drive, I'm gonna say the comparison is valid and they aren't even near the bottom of the specs table.

Of course people like it when ALL the specs get better in these things, but that's because people like simple things more than true things.

[-] Vinny_93@lemmy.world 23 points 4 weeks ago

Apples and oranges, though. The left two are hard drives, the right two are solid state drives (ie flash memory). They kind of serve the same purpose, but there is quite a big step in between 2 and 3. 2.5" HDDs also exist, though. Then again, so do 1TB MicroSD cards. And 2280 M.2 SSDs. But also huge tapes that are still in use for backup purposes.

[-] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 19 points 4 weeks ago

There were even smaller hard drives. The iPod used a 1.8in drive.

load more comments (5 replies)
[-] Bebopalouie@lemmy.ca 15 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Ahh yes, I remember my first Seagate ST225. A whopping 20 MB of storage for the low low price of 800 bucks.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz 8 points 4 weeks ago

In the compsci building at uni, there is a museum of sorts in the hall to the labs. At the beginning of the storage section, there is a 20Mb storage device. It is the size of a washing machine, I have no idea how much it weighs, but it has to be in the 100's of kg range.

Sitting on top are much more modern devices, 5.25"/3.5"/2.5" drives; I haven't been back for a decade to know if they kept going as tech improved.

[-] Rhaedas@fedia.io 2 points 4 weeks ago

"Sitting on top" is a brilliant way to display that.

[-] absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz 4 points 4 weeks ago

Very effective.

The RAM section with the hand woven memory modules is so awesome. 1kb of RAM; tiny iron rings with fine copper wires threaded through them.

[-] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

My mother worked in a factory making those things when she was young.

Oh and the wires were gold and hair thin, and they did the whole thing by hand.

This was at some point in the 60s.

[-] bluesheep@sh.itjust.works 8 points 4 weeks ago

The left most one is also an HDD? It looks like what I imagine a tape drive would look like but searching for them shows very different results lol

[-] Routhinator@startrek.website 10 points 4 weeks ago

Its actually a smaller one too. Those 5 1/4 HDDs could be 2 bays tall.

[-] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 weeks ago

For tape look up LTO or LTO-WORM.
That is the current industry standard (afaik).

[-] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 7 points 4 weeks ago

Is that NVME only half length still with a full TB? It almost looks to be the same size as an M.2 wifi adapter. Crazy that they're getting this small.

I recently bought two cheaper 1TB NVME and have some premium ones from several years ago but they're all the full 80mm length. I have yet to come across ones this small personally.

[-] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 12 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

2280 seems to be the most common DIY size, 2230 is common for business machines, sometimes in an adapter to fit a normal 2.5" HDD bay or a slot large enough for 2280. I just removed one from the 2280 adapter last week to get data off after the storm came through the east coast.

[-] recked_wralph@lemmy.world 36 points 4 weeks ago

The fact that those measurements are in inches when “2280” means 22mm x 80mm agitates me.

[-] spwyll@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

When the measurement is already in the designation, the only point to adding information is for "translation." It would irk me if someone felt the need to point out a 2280 was 80 mm long while a 2230 was only 30 mm long. I mean it's already in the name...

[-] trolololol@lemmy.world 5 points 4 weeks ago

I mean I appreciate the mention or else I wouldn't have learned it

[-] ikidd@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

There's terabyte SD cards now, that are almost that fast.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] swordgeek@lemmy.ca 7 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I've got a full-height 5 1/4" 1GB hard drive around here. Thing is massive.

I've also got most of the storage devices I've ever used over the decades:

  • 5 1/4" floppy
  • 3 1/2" floppy
  • 4mm DAT tape
  • 8mm DAT tape
  • 1/4" QIC tape
  • Zip disk
  • Cassette tape
  • Punched tape

I'm missing the following:

  • DLT tape
  • LTO tape
  • 8" floppy
  • IBM 2315 disk pack

Never used 9-track tapes, punch cards, or removable disk multipacks.

EDIT Don't know how I forgot about cartridges (Atari 400 and 2600 - still got em!) and CDROM/DVD/WORM. I have CDROM, DVDROM (in various formats), but no WORM media (i.e. IBM 3363 - a CDROM in a rigid case, before the official CD standard was created).

[-] Zedd_Prophecy@lemmy.world 4 points 4 weeks ago

You need a Jazz drive and a mean looking 20mb MFM hard drive that didn't have auto parking.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
[-] frank_exchange_of_views@sh.itjust.works 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Kind of hard to see the scale, but the drive that this removable platter would go into, took the full width of a 19" rack.

It once held several megabytes, but now it's a decoration in my office.

[-] utopiah@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Meanwhile I'm traveling soon and "packing" microSDs, like... 0.5Tos the size and nearly weight of my fingernail. It's ridiculous!

I considered buying the 2To ones ... but I don't even need them. Even the 0.5To ones it's to carry some video library or Kiwix with Wikipedia and StackOverflow which to be honest I don't even truly need as I can get the content over the Internet anyway.

[-] taiyang@lemmy.world 4 points 4 weeks ago

It really is amazing, and just popping an m.2 into a motherboard directly is just so... easy. And I think Gen5s are what, 2.5x faster than what you're showing here?

[-] MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca 7 points 4 weeks ago

The screw situation is finicky. It's a weird mix between you're supposed to have screws from your case/motherboard or sometimes the drive comes with one. But if you move stuff and drop the tiny tiny screw it's a hassle. Every motherboard should just have the little tab you just turn to keep it in place.

Plus the newer gen fast drives get hot so they need a heatsink. The fastest maybe need heatsink plus airflow. So then you need an extra fan if you don't have enough airflow which is easy because it's flush against the motherboard and sometimes blocked by the GPU.

[-] taiyang@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

Full agree on the screw situation, although my most recent mobi addressed that with a sort of... turnable plastic lock thing? And a built in heatsink and "shield" for the gen 5 and 4 ports, so I haven't had any issues with heat. I get the sense we'll have a better standard as time goes in though, Gen5 is really really new.

But even the gen 3s are lovely. Maybe I just hate SATA cables, haha.

[-] Treczoks@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

I think I have two I could put on the left side. A "full-height" 5.25 inch drive with 5 megabytes and a DEC removable disk platter assembly, somewhere over a foot in diameter and 8 to 10 inches high. I don't remember how much capacity that had. It was for a RP04 or RP06 drive.

[-] nibbler@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I have some very old RAM at home. You could see the single bits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic-core_memory I have a small viol with some 100 bytes, and one of those fabrics with the rings still on the wires. I threw away the PCB because it was huge...

I just read the article and learned: it was phased out before I was born, and it's the root of the name "core dump" etc :D

[-] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 weeks ago

You could go back further to the drives mini computers used to use, which basically for in a file cabinet. Or old mainframes, which were the file cabinet.

[-] jj4211@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

Oldest hard drives I've dealt with were 4RU. Those systems also had me attaching reels of tape with write enable rings.

[-] Rhaedas@fedia.io 2 points 4 weeks ago

Having grown up along with the computer industry, sometimes I have that surreal sense of awe when I remember where we came from and what I used to consider cutting edge. Just upgraded my computer with a few SSDs, one an M.2, and before I put it in I was looking at it and trying to come to grasp with the scale of things (size and speed) vs. my first C-64 computer and Datasette. I know the numbers...they don't convey the difference in the head.

[-] magnetosphere@fedia.io 2 points 4 weeks ago

Do manufacturers use the extra space for larger batteries, or just to make the product smaller overall?

[-] MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 weeks ago

This is for desktop PC. But the correct answer is overall smaller because if you only had spinny drives a lot of small devices wouldn't be possible.

[-] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

I started on 3.5" HDDs in the 90s. I am running 3.5" HDDs today. They are still the most cost efficient.

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
658 points (100.0% liked)

Mildly Interesting

21998 readers
299 users here now

This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.

This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?

Just post some stuff and don't spam.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
marcar@lemmy.world
WhatsHerBucket@lemmy.world
Jimbabwe@lemmy.ml