Hard Disks 50th Birthday

Today marks the 50th anniverary of IBM’s introduction of the first hard disk.

Of course things have moved on since then. Not only are they physically smaller, cheaper and more reliable, but, according to Steven Levy, their capacity has increased considerably:

The total amount of information stored [was] not quite enough to hold two MP3 copies of Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog.”

Would Apple’s iPod adverts have been quite so successful if it had only been “nearly two songs in your pocket”?