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Direct Access Storage Device (DASD), 1982
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With the hard disk introduced in June 1980, IBM achieved a "small quantum leap" compared to the previous version: 70% energy was saved for operation and 65 % less space was required. With a capacity of 2.5 gigabytes, a data transfer rate of 3 megabytes per second and an access speed of 16 milliseconds, this has also set new standards. If you compare the 3.5-inch floppy disk introduced by Sony in 1982, which has long been the standard for everyday data transfer, this corresponds to over 1.7 million floppy disks. Today, on the other hand, there are micro SD cards with more than 1 terabyte.
If there were still problems with the model at the beginning of production, these could be fixed in 1981 and the hard disk went into mass production. The IBM 3380 was used at Merck shortly afterwards and fundamentally changed the way in which data was processed.
If only a single contiguous string were to be stored on this hard disk, the 2.5 gigabytes would be approximately 6.5 tons of standard pages written on one side with a maximum of 1800 characters!
The added value of the hard disk at that time was not only the saving of paper.
Additional features justified a price of more than $90,000: Data could be modified, deleted, searched and even evaluated.
The 6.5 tons of paper are derived from a simplified calculation:
1 bytes=1 characters
1 standard page = 1800 characters (30 lines x 60 characters)
2.5 Gigabyte = 2,500,000,000 bytes / characters (2,500,000,000 characters) / (1800 characters) = 1,388,888.9 pages (297 mm x 210 mm (size A4 page)) / (1,000,000 mm2) = 0.05859
0.05959 x 80 g (weight of 1m2 paper) = 4.6872 g 1,388,888.9 x 4.6872 g = 6.510 kg
To better imagine the 6.5 tons of paper, or the 1,388,889 pages, this corresponds to 2,778 standard packs of A4 paper with 500 sheets. Assuming a packaging dimension of 5.4 cm, the packaging stacked on top of each other would reach a height of 150 meters and thus exceed the Eurotower, the ECB's former headquarters in Frankfurt, by 2 meters.