The world's first 5 MB hard drive weighed over a ton and had to be moved with a forklift.

On September 13, 1956, IBM changed computing forever by introducing the 305 RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control). This massive machine featured the IBM 350 disk storage unit, which was the first commercial computer to use a moving-head hard disk drive. Before this invention, data was typically stored on magnetic tape or punch cards, which required sequential searching and were incredibly slow.The storage unit contained 50 aluminum disks, each 24 inches in diameter, coated with a magnetic iron oxide paint. These disks rotated at 1,200 RPM, allowing the system to access any piece of data in about 600 milliseconds. Despite its revolutionary capabilities, the entire unit weighed over 2,000 pounds and occupied approximately 16 square feet of floor space. It was so large that it had to be transported via cargo planes and moved into buildings using heavy-duty forklifts.The total capacity was roughly 4.4 million characters, which IBM marketed as 5 megabytes of storage. Customers did not buy the machine but leased it for a staggering $3,200 per month, which is equivalent to over $35,000 in today's currency. This milestone marked the transition from batch processing to real-time data processing, laying the groundwork for every modern hard drive and solid-state drive used in the 21st century.