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Industry Math

$87.5 billion.

The price of one terabyte of hard-drive storage in 1956, inflation-adjusted.

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Vintage IBM RAMAC hard drive cabinet with spinning platters, photographed in a clinical, high-contrast industrial style.

The Rise, Fall, and Comeback of the Hard Drive

$87.5 billion.

A terabyte of hard-drive storage cost $87.5 billion in 1956 and about $10 today. The arc of the spinning disk, told by the numbers, with every figure traced to a named source.

Open File

Industry Math tells industry history with data instead of adjectives.

Every episode is one arc: origins, boom, turn, displacement, legacy. Each is anchored by a number that makes you blink, and one mechanism explained properly.

Every number, date, and claim on this site traces to a named source before it is published.