ICY News: History: Milestones in HDD Capacity

From 5MB in 1956 to 4TB today 

Year	Maker	Model	Capacity	More Than
1956	IBM	350 Ramac	5MB	1MB
1961	Bryant	4240	90MB	50MB
1965	IBM	2302-3	100MB	100MB
1974	IBM	3330-11 Iceberg	200MB	200MB
1975	STC	8800 Super Disk	880MB	500MB
1981	IBM	3380	1.26GB	1GB
2001	Seagate	Barracuda 180	182GB	100GB
2005	Hitachi GST	7K500	500GB	500GB
2006	Seagate	Barracuda 7200.10	750GB	750GB
2007	Hitachi GST	7K1000	1TB	1TB
2008	Seagate	Barracuda 7200.11	1.5TB	1.5TB
2009	WD	Caviar Green WD20EADS	2TB	2TB
2010	Seagate	External GoFlex Desk	3TB	3TB
2012	Hitachi GST	7K4000	4TB	4TB

 (Source: Disk/Trend and StorageNewsletter.com)
Now everybody is at 4TB, Tohiba, Seagate, WD as well as its subsidiary HGST; The first 5TB and 6TB HDDs are expected next year in 3.5" form factor.

     First HDD Form Factor Introduction

Form factor	Year introduced	Company
39-inch	1961	Bryant Computer
24-inch	1956	IBM
14-inch	1963	IBM
10.5-inch	1981	Fujitsu
9.5-inch	1988	Hitachi
8.8-inch	1984	Hitachi
8.0-inch	1979	Shugart Associates
6.5-inch	1993	Hitachi
5.25-inch	1980	Seagate
3.5-inch	1983	Rodime
3.0-inch	1996	JTS
2.5-inch	1988	PrairieTek
1.8-inch	1991	Intégral Peripherals
1.5-inch	1991	Ecol.2
1.3-inch	1992	HP
1.0-inch	1999	IBM
0.85-inch	2004	Toshiba

  (Sources: Disk/Trend and StorageNewsletter.com)

Hard drive industries are growing rapidly with more capacity and smaller form factor. Almost every user have high capacity HDD nowadays that its not a necessity to purchase multiple small capacity drives since it would be a waste of space for extra drive. To keep safe and secure with high capacity HDDs, getting an enclosure to protect the drives may be the best solution to prevent loss of any data. 

Link to entire Article from StorageNewsletter: History: Milestones in HDD Capacity