Tweet (#2878678687)

1 gigabyte of data, then and now: Link http://twitter.com/mustardhamsters/statuses/2878678687

1. [tallpat]

   When is then?

2. [Dean Putney]

   Dunno, sorry. The source of the image didn’t have any more details, and the description on the exhibit in the picture doesn’t show much either.

3. [Anonymous]

   From the late 70s. Apparently, it’s from a storage device for IBM mainframes. Google for “IBM 1GB hard drive” and you should be able to get more info.

4. [Metostopholes]

   Man, that is really big.

   … They should get a microSD card instead of the bulky regular one. ^_~

5. [nixiebunny]

   Then would be sometime around 1990.

   Hard disks in 1982 were about 100MB for that size. The 5″ disks were 5-10MB.

   In 1990, you could get about 100MB on a 5″ drive. That big thing would have been about 10x the capacity.

   I didn’t work for IBM, so I have no information about that particular unit. It is rather unusual in that it has two head assemblies. Must have been made for the high performance market.