Do you know who is the inventor of the hard disk? …

Reynold “Rey” Johnson (1906-1998) was an American inventor and computer pioneer.

A native of Minnesota, Johnson was a graduate of the University of Minnesota (BS in Educational Administration, 1929).

In 1952, IBM sent Johnson to San Jose, California, to set up and manage its West Coast Laboratory. In 1956, a research team lead by Johnson developed disk data storage technology, which IBM released as the IBM 305 RAMAC. Although the first disk drive was crude by modern standards, it launched a multibillion dollar industry.

The IBM 305 RAMAC was the first commercial computer that used a moving head hard disk drive (magnetic disk storage) for secondary storage. IBM introduced the storage unit on Sept 4, 1956 before unveiling the entire computer nine days later on September 13.

RAMAC stood for “Random Access Method of Accounting and Control”. Its design was motivated by the need for real time accounting in business. The first RAMAC to be used in the US auto industry was installed at Chrysler’s MOPAR Division in 1957.

The entire RAMAC unit weighed over a ton and had to be moved around with forklifts and delivered via large cargo airplanes. While the storage capacity of the drive could have been increased above five megabytes, the marketing department at IBM was against a larger capacity drive because they didn’t know how to sell a product with more storage.

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