5MB Hard Disk in 1956

 IBM developed a gigantic 5 MB hard drive system for their RAMAC computer. Just imagine trying to cram this thing into an iPod. Or your house, for that matter...

• IBM invented the disk drive in 1956.
• The first disk drives were the size of two large refrigerators and held 5 MB.
• Storage cost $10,000 per MB (so your 20G drive would have cost $200,000,000 back then!). Today it's about 50c per GIGABYTE (or .05c per MB)
• The platters of disks typically spin about 100 miles per hour.
• 1 GB of data is equivalent to 1,500 paperback novels.
• An areal density (i.e. how much data can be put into a given surface area of disk) of 1.44 billion bits per square inch is equivalent to 87 college textbooks (1 inch=25.4 mm).
• 5 GB is equivalent to 50 years of a typical daily newspaper, one million printed pages, and a stack of paper 62 storeys tall.