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Computer drive sizes over the years (lemmy.zip)

submitted 2 days ago by ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.zip to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world

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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.

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[-] utopiah@lemmy.world 4 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours 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.

[-] nibbler@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours 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

[-] frank_exchange_of_views@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day 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.

[-] swordgeek@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 day 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
8" floppy
IBM 2315 disk pack

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

[-] umbraroze@slrpnk.net 1 points 22 hours ago

Off the top of my mind, stuff that I've used and still have lying around:

5.25" floppies (DSDD, Commodore 64; I think I may have a few HD floppies for PC but I'm not sure if I have a drive for them)
3.5" floppies (HD and some DD, mostly for PC; I have a few PC carcasses that have floppy drives, but I do also have a working USB floppy drive)
Cassette tapes (Spectravideo, Commodore VIC-20, Commodore 64)
ROM cartridges (same as above, plus game consoles)
Iomega Zip (not sure if the Zip floppies I have have anything relevant; the USB Zip drive is in box somewhere)
Iomega Jaz (two disks; not sure if the drive I was actually working last time I used it, could be completely hosed by now, Iomega didn't exactly have a good reputation)
A few IDE/PATA hard drives (not sure of the condition)
Bunch of CD/DVD/rewritables, I think I have a few unused CD-Rs/DVD-Rs too, never had a Blu-Ray drive for computers
USB sticks and hard drives of various descriptions
microSD cards used with Raspberry Pi

Funny thing is, I think I have no extra SATA hard drives and modern SSDs lying around, because most of the computers I have that use them are still in operation.

[-] myotheraccount@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Funny how optical discs made it onto none of your lists

[-] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

Magneto-optical. Even better.

[-] Zedd_Prophecy@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

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

[-] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

Syquest cartridges.

[-] ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

I've actually got a little stack of punch cards. It's a program my dad wrote when he was in college, he gave it to me when I started programming

[-] nonentity@sh.itjust.works 87 points 2 days ago

5MB of storage in 1956.

5MB storage in 1956

[-] the_trash_man@lemmy.world 3 points 22 hours ago

You could probably store more in a filing cabinet with paper

[-] Sabin10@lemmy.world 22 points 2 days ago

That would hold 1.66 copies of war and peace.

[-] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 21 points 2 days 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 1 day ago

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

[-] tetris11@feddit.uk 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day 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 2 days ago

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

[-] Dicska@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Imagine the smug face of the first adopters of 3.5" disks, thinking it would easily fit on 4 floppies! Heck, even 15x5.25" ones are so much smaller...

[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

And somewhere in there is an NVMe as well.

[-] __dev@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

The one on the very right is NVMe.

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 46 points 2 days ago

Wait, 1tb?

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

[-] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 42 points 2 days 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 15 points 2 days 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.

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[-] MudMan@fedia.io 8 points 2 days 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.

[-] bluesheep@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day 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 9 points 1 day ago

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

[-] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 day ago

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

[-] Vinny_93@lemmy.world 23 points 2 days 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 2 days ago

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

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[-] Bebopalouie@lemmy.ca 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

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

[-] ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Same first hard drive I bought! Crazy we both remembered the model number too. Got mine in 1990 so not $800 I don't believe, but regardless it was all I could afford after buying the 8087 math coprocessor too!

[-] Bebopalouie@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

Forgot about copro. Everyone and their dog had to have it back then.

[-] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

It’s a bit misleading, you could have used an sd card long ago

[-] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 days 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 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days 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 2 days ago

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

[-] spwyll@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day 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 1 day ago

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

[-] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

Welcome to merica!

[-] frezik 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Welcome to everywhere. 3.5" disks in German are called "dreieinhalb Zoll Disketten", and in Dutch "drie punt vijf inch floppys". Both of those translate roughly to "three and a half inch disks/floppies". Everyone borrowed US computer terms and translated them directly.

No country uses the metric system exclusively. None. You will find exceptions if you look for them. This isn't some kind of moral failing, it's just practicality. Look at how car tires are sold for one example that's nearly universal due to industry standards.

[-] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

It was a joke

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[-] absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz 8 points 2 days 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.

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