What is it?

What is this relic? It must be some kind of technology, right?

It’s a hard disk drive back in 1956… with 5 MB of storage.

In September 1956 IBM launched the 305 RAMAC, the  first ‘SUPER’ computer with a hard disk drive (HDD). The HDD  weighed over a ton and stored a ‘whopping’ 5  MB of data.

Do you appreciate your 8GB (8192 MB) memory stick now?

Check out the the 305 RAMAC in use below at the U.S. Army Red River Arsenal. In the  foreground are two 350 disk drives with the 380 console and 305 processing unit in the background. RAMAC stood for “Random Access Method of Accounting and Control”. The RAMAC 305 system with 350 disk storage leased for $3,200 per month in 1957 dollars, equivalent to a purchase price of about $160,000. Makes that $30 you just spend on an 8G flash drive seem trivial…