CW@50: A half-century of data storage (PDF)

When Computerworld was founded in 1967, a 1-megabyte hard drive would have set you back by $1 million.

Today, that same megabyte of capacity on a hard disk drive (HDD) costs about two cents.

Through those five decades, data storage was seen as little more than a support technology, when in actuality has always been one of five tech pillars — like processors and software — underpinning our modern computer systems, said Owen Melroy, vice president of Media Components at Western Digital Corp. (WD).

[ See more Computerworld 50th anniversary coverage ]

To understand how we got from there to here, you have to go back another 10 years before Computerworld was born. One excellent way to do that is to download our free PDF, with a two-part, in-depth package by our staff storage expert, Lucas Mearian.