The first 5MB hard drive weighed approximately...

Shipped in September 1956, the first 5MB hard disk unit weighed over a ton (approximately 2,200 pounds) and was used in the IBM 305 RAMAC, the first commercial computer to feature a moving-head hard disk.

The drive occupied 16 square feet and utilized fifty 24-inch platters, which were read by two independently moving arms with an average access time of 600 milliseconds.

Also referred to as the IBM 350 Disk Storage Unit, the drive was roughly the size of two refrigerators and was mounted on a sturdy metal frame anchored to the floor. It required a dedicated air conditioning system to maintain optimal temperature and humidity levels, ensuring the integrity of the delicate magnetic disks. Due to its enormous size and weight, it was primarily used in large data centers and mainframe computer rooms.

At the time, 5MB of storage provided the ability to store five million characters of accounting data – the equivalent of 64,000 punch cards or approximately 2.5 million pages of typed text.

Unlike tape storage, which required sequential reading to locate data, the RAMAC's hard drive allowed random access, significantly improving retrieval speeds. This marked a major leap forward in data storage technology, paving the way for the development of larger, faster, and more reliable hard drives in the decades that followed.

Production of the IBM 305 RAMAC ended in 1961, as it became obsolete following the introduction of IBM's 1405 Disk Storage Unit for the IBM 1401 computer. Over the next two decades, hard drive technology continued to evolve, becoming smaller, more affordable, and more accessible to businesses and consumers.

By 1981, Apple introduced its first hard drive, the "ProFile," which offered 5MB of storage for $3,499. Unlike the bulky IBM 350, the ProFile was compact enough to sit on top of Apple II, III, and Lisa computers.