by Geoff Gasior
Much has happened in the hard drive world since 2005. Old-school “parallel” ATA has all but been wiped from our collective consciousness by Serial ATA, banishing bulky ribbon cables from our systems. Mechanical hard drives have switched from longitudinal to perpendicular recording, enabling substantial increases in areal density and overall drive capacity. Hard drives have become smarter, too, adopting command queuing schemes previously reserved for high-end SCSI gear. Oh, and we’ve witnessed the birth of an entirely new class of solid-state storage solutions that represent perhaps the first real paradigm shift in the industry.
To explore how these factors have shaped hard drive performance, we’ve squeezed several years worth of test data into some seriously frightening graphs. Join us as we take a trip down memory lane to see just how far PC storage has come.
