Technology moves fast. We have powerful computers, iPhones, iPads, televisions and all sorts of other devices. I think we tend to take most of the technology for granted these days — we just assume that components will be small enough to make things fit in the palm of our hand. The hard drive has been at the heart of our technology needs for many years, but it wasn’t always the tiny little thing we know today.

In the 1950s, storage hardware was measured in feet—and in tons. Back then, the era’s state-of-the-art computer drive was found in IBM’s RAMAC 305; it consisted of two refrigerator-size boxes that weighed about a ton each. One box held 40 24-inch dual-sided magnetic disk platters; a carriage with two recording heads suspended by compressed air moved up and down the stack to access the disks. The other cabinet contained the data processing unit, the magnetic process drum, magnetic core register and electronic logical and arithmetic circuits.

A brief history of the hard drive [Macworld]