Main article: Hard disk drive

In 1953 IBM recognized the immediate application for what it termed a "Random Access File" having high capacity and rapid random access at a relatively low cost. After considering technologies such as wire matrices, rod arrays, drums, drum arrays, etc., the engineers at IBM's San Jose California laboratory invented the hard disk drive. The disk drive created a new level in the computer data hierarchy, then termed Random Access Storage but today known as secondary storage, less expensive and slower than main memory (then typically drums) but faster and more expensive than tape drives.

The commercial usage of hard disk drives began in 1956 with the shipment of an IBM 305 RAMAC system including IBM Model 350 disk storage. US Patent 3,503,060 issued March 24, 1970, and arising from the IBM RAMAC program is generally considered to be the fundamental patent for disk drives.

Each generation of disk drives replaced larger, more sensitive and more cumbersome devices. The earliest drives were usable only in the protected environment of a data center. Later generations progressively reached factories, offices and homes, eventually reaching ubiquity.

Disk media diameter was nominally 8 or 14 inches (200 or 360 mm) and were typically mounted in standalone boxes (resembling washing machines) or large equipment rack enclosures. Individual drives often required high-current AC power due to the large motors required to spin the large disks. Hard disk drives were not commonly used with microcomputers until after 1980, when Seagate Technology introduced the ST-506, the first 5.25 inches (133 mm) drive.

The capacity of hard drives has grown exponentially over time. When hard drives became available for personal computers, they offered 5-megabyte capacity. During the mid-1990s the typical hard disk drive for a PC had a capacity of about 1 gigabyte.[6] As of January 2012, desktop hard disk drives typically had a capacity of 500 to 2000 gigabytes, while the largest-capacity drives were 4 terabytes.

Timeline
1956 – IBM 350, first commercial disk drive, 5 million characters
1961 – IBM 1301 Disk Storage Unit introduced with one head per surface and aerodynamic flying heads, 28 million characters per module
1962 – IBM 1311 introduced removable disk packs containing 6 disks, storing 2 million characters per pack
1964 – IBM 2311 with 7.25 megabytes per disk pack
1964 – IBM 2310 removable cartridge disk drive with 1.02 MB on one disk
1965 – IBM 2314 with 11 disks and 29 MB per disk pack
1968 – Memorex is first to ship an IBM-plug-compatible disk drive
1970 – IBM 3330 Merlin, introduced error correction, 100 MB per disk pack
1973 – IBM 3340 Winchester introduced removable sealed disk packs that included head and arm assembly, 35 or 70 MB per pack
1973 – CDC SMD announced and shipped, 40 MB disk pack
1979 – IBM 3370 introduced thin film heads, 571 MB, non-removable
1980 – The world's first gigabyte-capacity disk drive, the IBM 3380, was the size of a refrigerator, weighed 550 pounds (about 250 kg), and had a price tag of $40,000( $113 thousand in present day terms) , 2.52 GB
1980 – ST-506 first 5 1/4 inch drive released with capacity of 5 megabytes, cost $1500
1986 – Standardization of SCSI
1989 – Jimmy Zhu and H. Neal Bertram from UCSD proposed exchange decoupled granular microstructure for thin film disk storage media, still used today.
1991 – 2.5-inch 100 megabyte hard drive
1991 – PRML Technology (Digital Read Channel with 'Partial Response Maximum Likelihood' algorithm)
1992 – first 1.3-inch hard-disk drive – HP Kittyhawk
1993 – IBM 3390 model 9, the last Single Large Expensive Disk drive announced by IBM
1994 – IBM introduces Laser Textured Landing Zones (LZT)
1996 – IBM introduces GMR (Giant Magnetoresistance) Technology for read sensors
1997 – Seagate introduces the first hard drive with fluid bearings
1998 – UltraDMA/33 and ATAPI standardized
1999 – IBM releases the Microdrive in 170 MB and 340 MB capacities

2002 – 137 GB addressing space barrier broken
2003 – Serial ATA introduced
2003 – IBM sells disk drive division to Hitachi
2005 – First 500 GB hard drive shipping (Hitachi GST)
2005 – Serial ATA 3Gbit/s standardized
2005 – Seagate introduces Tunnel MagnetoResistive Read Sensor (TMR) and Thermal Spacing Control
2005 – Introduction of faster SAS (Serial Attached SCSI)
2005 – First Perpendicular recording HDD shipped: Toshiba 1.8-inch 40/80 GB
2006 – First 750 GB hard drive (Seagate)
2006 – First 200 GB 2.5" hard drive utilizing Perpendicular recording (Toshiba)
2006 – Fujitsu develops heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) that could one day achieve one terabit per square inch densities.
2007 – First 1 terabyte(~0.9095 TiB) hard drive (Hitachi GST)
2008 – First 1.5 terabyte(~ 1.3642 TiB) hard drive[20] (Seagate)
2009 – First 2.0 terabyte hard drive (Western Digital)
2010 – First 3.0 terabyte hard drive (Seagate, Western Digital)
2010 – First Hard Drive Manufactured by using the Advanced Format of 4 KiB a block instead of 512 bytes a block
2011 – First 4.0 terabyte hard drive (Seagate)