1956 - IBM 350, shipment of test disk drive to Zellerbach, SF CA, USA
1957 - IBM 350, first production disk drive, 5 million characters (6-bit), equivalent to 3.75 megabytes.
1961 - IBM 1301 Disk Storage Unit introduced with one head per surface and aerodynamic flying heads, 28 million characters (6-bit) per module.
1961 - Bryant Computer Products division of Ex-Cell-O, 1 meter platters, 1200 RPM, up to 205MB.
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
1976 - 1976 IBM 3350 "Madrid" – 317.5 megabytes, eight 14" disks, re-introduction of disk drive with fixed disk media
1979 - IBM 3370 introduced thin film heads, 571 MB, non-removable
1979 - 1979 IBM 62PC "Piccolo" – 64.5 megabytes, six 8" disks, first 8-inch HDD
1980 - The IBM 3380 was the world's first gigabyte-capacity disk drive. Two 1.26 GB, head disk assemblies (essentially two HDDs) were packaged in a cabinet the size of a refrigerator, weighed 455 kg (1000 lb), and had a price tag of 81,000 USD (Model B4) which is 240,579 USD in present-day terms.
1980 - ST-506 first 51⁄4 inch drive released with capacity of 5 megabytes, cost $1500 USD
1982 - HP 7935 404 megabyte, 7 platter hard drive for minicomputers, HP-IB bus, $27,000
1983 - RO351/RO352 first 31⁄2 inch drive released with capacity of 10 megabytes
1986 - Standardization of SCSI
1988 - PrairieTek 220 – 20 megabytes, two 2.5" disks, first 2.5 inch HDD
1989 - Jimmy Zhu and H. Neal Bertram from UCSD proposed exchange decoupled granular microstructure for thin film disk storage media, still used today.
1990 - 1990 IBM 0681 "Redwing" – 857 megabytes, twelve 5.25" disks. First HDD with PRML Technology (Digital Read Channel with 'partial response maximum likelihood' algorithm).
1991 - IBM 0663 "Corsair" – 1,004 megabytes, eight 3.5" disks; first HDD using magnetoresistive heads
1991 - Integral Peripherals 1820 "Mustang" – 21.4 megabytes, one 1.8" disk, first 1.8-inch HDD
1992 - HP Kittyhawk – 20MB, first 1.3-inch hard-disk drive
1993 - IBM 3390 model 9, the last Single Large Expensive Disk drive announced by IBM
1994 - IBM introduces Laser Textured Landing Zones (LZT)
1997 - IBM Deskstar 16GP "Titan" – 16,800 megabytes, five 3.5" disks; first (Giant Magnetoresistance) heads
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 - (Parallel) ATA breaks 137 GB (128 GiB) addressing space barrier
2003 - Serial ATA introduced
2003 - IBM sells disk drive division to Hitachi
2004 - MK2001MTN first 0.85-inch drive released by Toshiba with capacity of 2 gigabytes
2005 - First 500 GB hard drive shipping (Hitachi GST)
2005 - Serial ATA 3 Gbit/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 magnetic recording (PMR) 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 hard drive (Hitachi GST)
2008 - First 1.5 terabyte hard drive (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 4,096 bytes a block ("4K") instead of 512 bytes a block
2011 - First 4.0 terabyte hard drive (Seagate)
2011 - Floods hit many hard drive factories. Predictions of a worldwide shortage of hard disk drives cause prices to double.
2012 - Western Digital announces the first 2.5-inch, 5 mm thick drive, and the first 2.5-inch, 7 mm thick drive with two platters (Western Digital)
2012 - HGST announces helium-filled hard disk drives, promising cooler operation and the ability to increase the maximum number of platters from five to seven in the 3.5" form factor (Hitachi GST)
2012 - TDK demonstrates 2 TB on a single 3.5-inch platter
2012 - Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and Western Digital merge to one hard drive manufacturer. To ensure actual competition on the hard drive market after the merging, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission requires that Western Digital and Hitachi GST give assets and intellectual property rights to Toshiba. This allows Toshiba to re-enter the 3.5" desktop hard disk drive market with capacities up to 3 TB. Prior to this, Toshiba had only manufactured 2.5" laptop HDDs for many years.
2013 - Seagate announces that it will ship hard disk drives with capacities up to 5 TB using shingled magnetic recording (SMR), a method where tracks are written to partially overlap each other. The read head, being smaller, can still read the overlapped tracks.
2013 - HGST announces a helium-filled 6 TB hard disk drive for enterprise applications
2013 - Western Digital demonstrates heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology
2014 - Seagate introduces 6 TB hard drives that do not use helium, in turn increasing their power consumption and lowering their overall cost
2014 - Seagate ships world's first 8 TB hard drives
2015 - In June HGST ships Ultrastar Archive Ha10 SMR HDD, the world's first 10 TB HDD followed in December by a conventional PMR HDD
2017 - 12 TB Helium-based HDD available from Western Digital.
2017 - 14 TB Helium-filled PMR HDD announced by Toshiba, with availability being promised for 2018 Q1 or Q2.
