Historical evolution of magnetic data storage devices and related conferences

Abstract

Telegraphic invention by Danish engineer Valdemar Poulson in 1898 was the first demonstration that a magnetic recording medium could be used to record information and for playback. It was not until 1947, that 3 M shipped the first commercial oxide tape coated on paper backing, and in 1953, IBM shipped the first magnetic tape drive, IBM 727, for data storage. IBM invented the first hard disk drive, IBM 305, called the random access method of accounting and control (RAMAC) for data storage. The RAMAC stored 5 MB of data and used fifty 24-in. diameter disks. The drive could be housed in a room of about 9 m × 15 m. It weighed over a ton and had to be moved around by forklifts. The cost was USD $250,000 at the time (a whopping $50,000 per MB!). In 2018, one could buy a 30 TB tape cartridge or 1 TB portable hard disk drives (with a 2.5-in. diameter disk), for about USD $100. Since the late 1970s, the tribology of head-medium interface has been considered a limiting technology for development of reliable drives with ever increasing recording densities. Given the importance of tribology, a first ever symposium on Tribology and Mechanics of Magnetic Storage Systems was held in 1984 at the ASME/STLE Tribology Conference, co-organized by B. Bhushan, D. Bogy, N. Eiss and F. Talke, and annually thereafter by Bhushan and Eiss. Many electromechanical, materials science, design and manufacturing issues also became important. In order to broaden the scope to include mechanical issues, the first International Symposium on Advances in Information Storage Systems was organized at the ASME Winter Annual Meeting in 1989 by B. Bhushan, and annually thereafter. B. Bhushan led the founding of Information Storage and Processing Systems (ISPS) Sub-division in ASME in 1992 which was elevated to a Division level in 1996. In 1993, the conference was renamed as the Annual Conference on ISPS. In 2018, the 27th Annual Conference on ISPS was held after 30th year of its inception, and the ISPS division celebrated its silver jubilee in 2017. The research papers continue to be published in a dedicated journal. This paper provides an overview of historical evolution of magnetic data storage devices and related conferences and publications with a focus on tribology and electromechanical, materials science, design and manufacturing issues.