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The Electronics Inside
Documents A Teardown History of PC Data Storage -- The EIectronics Inside 17
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  • Author Author: tariq.ahmad
  • Date Created: 5 Mar 2020 3:49 PM Date Created
  • Last Updated Last Updated: 5 Feb 2020 8:24 AM
  • Views 3745 views
  • Likes 8 likes
  • Comments 17 comments
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A Teardown History of PC Data Storage -- The EIectronics Inside 17

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element14 Presents  |  About David   |  Project Videos  |  The Electronics Inside

 

 

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I don't think it's much of a secret that I'm quite into computing. So lets look back at the history of computer storage, and compare some of the techniques, methods and hardware used.

 

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Top Comments

  • a531016
    a531016 over 6 years ago in reply to KalebTheMaker +2
    I remeber someone I knew back in the day had a 10K RPM 1.7GB (I think) SCSI raptor array with 8 drives. The thing sounded like a Helicoptor taking off during spin up, and machine gun fire when the read…
  • KalebTheMaker
    KalebTheMaker over 6 years ago +1
    Thanks for the fun teardown! I remember working with those monster drives in old production mainframes. The first time I had to replace a failed drive, I took the bad one home and tore it apart. I think…
  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 6 years ago +1
    Another trip down memory lane. I recall that my first PC hard drive (20MB) used the ST506/ST412 Shugart interface with MFM/RLL encoding drives long before the (parallel) ATA and SATA days. There were three…
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  • DAB
    DAB over 6 years ago

    Nice video.

     

    I have worked with magnetic tape, paper tape, paper cards and cassette tape media.

    paper tape came in high and low speed. The low speed was ten characters per second. The high speed was 300 characters per second.

    Paper cards ran from ten cards/second to 300 cards per second.

    Cassette tapes ran about 300 characters per second.

     

    So it was not just storage capability, but also access speed.

     

    DAB

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  • DAB
    DAB over 6 years ago

    Nice video.

     

    I have worked with magnetic tape, paper tape, paper cards and cassette tape media.

    paper tape came in high and low speed. The low speed was ten characters per second. The high speed was 300 characters per second.

    Paper cards ran from ten cards/second to 300 cards per second.

    Cassette tapes ran about 300 characters per second.

     

    So it was not just storage capability, but also access speed.

     

    DAB

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  • a531016
    a531016 over 6 years ago in reply to DAB

    Absolutely, read write speed is critical! Although I guess it was kind of relative to the media stored too? I certainly wouldn't be making 2TB backups on to media the speed of a Floppy drive?

     

    I remember seeing an interview with a data storage specialist once, he was asked if he wanted to back up some data for as long as physically possible. He said using a punched plastic tape would be the most reliable for a long periof of time!

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