For more information on current editorial staff, please visit our About page. The IBM 3340 Direct Access Storage Facility, code-named Winchester, was introduced in March 1973 for use with IBM System/370. Another term for hard disk drive. The cost per megabyte of Winchester drives was 30 percent less than the cost of disk-pack drives of equivalent capacity. Introduced in 1973 as the model 3340, the drive had one permanent and one removable spindle, each holding 30MB. 1984: . Model 1866 "Yellow Boy lever action introduced -- first gun to bear the Winchester name. The capacity of hard drives has grown exponentially over time. Bellis, Mary. Additional drives can be connected to a controller to increase the data storage capacity. The Acorn DFS was a sideways ROM which was fitted in one of the ROM sockets. "* The first 3340 shipments to customers began in November 1973. What are the Disadvantages of compact disk? Seagate also produced the first 5.25-inch hard drive in 1980. The 3340 had two spindles, each storing 30 Megabytes. PCMag supports Group Black and its mission to increase greater diversity in media voices and media ownerships. Winchester was an OLD hard drive. Corrections? The .300 Winchester Magnum (also known as .300 Win Mag) is a popular, belted, bottlenecked magnum rifle cartridge that was introduced by Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1963 as a member of the family of Winchester Magnum cartridges. Magnetic Head Development specifications of key IBM models (Retrieved on 1.31.15 from: Harker, J., et. In 1964, the IBM 2311 was the first standardized disk drive, which could be used across multiple versions of the System/360 computer. The 3340 was developed in San Jose under the leadership of Ken Haughton. In 1976, the 5 1/4" flexible disk drive and diskette was developed by Alan Shugart for Wang Laboratories. An informal generic term for floating head magnetic disk drives in which the read-write head planes over the disk surface on an air cushion. Winchester disk drive. From beginning and into the early 1980s manufacturing was mainly by US firms in the United States at locations such as Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Minnesota and Oklahoma City. The IBM 1311 contained 6 disks and could hold 2.6MB of data. It was announced in 1956 with the then new IBM 305 RAMAC computer. reference room, Storage product . Other articles where Winchester disk is discussed: computer: Secondary memory: with fixed platters known as Winchester disksperhaps because the first ones had two 30-megabyte platters, suggesting the Winchester 30-30 rifle. Unit volume and industry revenue monotonically increased during the 1990s to 174 million units and $26 billion.[19]. Mary Bellis covered inventions and inventors for ThoughtCo for 18 years. In 1956, the first hard drive to be sold commercially was invented by IBM. The drive's total capacity, depending on the number of platters installed, was up to 205,377,600 bytes (205MB).[11][12]. Hard drives of today Hard drives are beginning to be replaced with solid sate drives in some laptops due to their higher speed and increased durability. In 1980, IBM produced the first gigabyte-capacity disk drive, the 3380. [26] Smaller, 2.5-inch drives, are available at up to 2TB for laptops, and 5TB as external drives. [13] The name 'Winchester' and some derivatives are still common in some non-English speaking countries to generally refer to any hard disks (e.g. profiles, Storage Wang wanted a smaller floppy disk and drive to use with their desktop computers. [18], Even though there were a number of new entrants, industry participants continued to decline in total to 15 in 1999. Kenneth E. Haughton, who led the 3340 development effort, is reported to have said: "If it's a 30-30, then it must be a Winchester. Winchester disk. 3030 is also the number of the Winchester rifle, so the IBM 3040 was called the Winchester. In 1963, the company revealed its Model 5 IBM 1311 Disk Storage Drive . ThinkComputers 2023. In a nutshell, a computer drive, also called a disk drive, is a device that stores digital information from your computer, sort of like keeping beans in a jar. Of course, smaller form factors in and of . See more. It does not store any personal data. [58] All three remaining firms still have significant activities in Silicon Valley, but no HDD manufacturing. A floppy disk or floppy diskette (sometimes casually referred to as a floppy or diskette) is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a fabric that removes dust particles from the spinning disk. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. It stored 1GB of data on eight disks. ThoughtCo. 1862. A shoebox-sized 5.25-inch Winchester was introduced in 1980, and an industry was born. The technology has been adopted by many manufacturers. Stevens, Louis D. Data Storage on Hard Magnetic Disks in Eric D Daniel, C. Denis Mee, Mark H. Clark, eds. Most hard disk drives in the early 1980s were sold to PC end users by systems integrators such as the Corvus Disk System or the systems manufacturer such as the Apple ProFile. In 1997, IBM introduced the first hard drive to use giant magneto resistive (GMR) heads, the Titan. The 3.5-inch disk drive had a capacity of 16.8GB. It is based on the .375 H&H Magnum, which has been blown out . In the middle of 1970s, a 5.25 diskette was introduced. The word fixed is used because the drives are internal or in an enclosure thats not easily removed. First HDD with, 1991 IBM 0663 "Corsair" 1,004 megabytes, eight 3.5-inch disks; first HDD using, 1991 Integral Peripherals 1820 "Mustang" 21.4 megabytes, one 1.8-inch disk, first 1.8-inch HDD, 1992 Seagate ships the first 7,200-rpm hard drive, the Barracuda, 1994 IBM introduces Laser Textured Landing Zones (LZT), 1996 Seagate ships the first 10,000-rpm hard drive, the Cheetah, 1997 IBM Deskstar 16GB "Titan" 16,800 megabytes, five 3.5-inch disks; first (, 1997 Seagate introduces the first hard drive with fluid bearings, 1998 UltraDMA/33 and ATAPI standardized, 2000 Seagate ships the first 15,000-rpm hard drive, the Cheetah X15, 2004 MK2001MTN first 0.85-inch drive released by, 2005 Seagate introduces Tunnel MagnetoResistive Read Sensor (TMR) and Thermal Spacing Control, 2006 First 200 GB 2.5-inch hard drive utilizing, 2009 Western Digital ships first HDD with dual stage piezoelectric actuator, 2010 First hard drive manufactured by using the. The RA81 is a DEC disk drive, introduced in 1982.It is a moving head (SDI Winchester) fixed disk drive.It has a non-removable media using a head/disk assembly (HDA) with a capacity of 456 Mbytes. [3] Subsequently there was a period of about 20 years in which other technologies competed with disks in the secondary storage marketplace, for example tape strips, e.g., NCR CRAM, tape cartridges, e.g., IBM 3850, and drums, e.g., Burroughs B430, UNIVAC FASTRAND, but all ultimately were displaced by HDDs. Surviving manufacturers are Seagate, Toshiba and Western Digital (WD) with Toshiba as the senior participant having entered the market in 1977,[57] twenty years after IBM started the market. The term Winchester comes from an early type of disk drive developed by IBM that had 30MB of fixed storage and 30MB of removable storage; so its inventors called it a Winchester in honor of its 30/30 rifle. CP/M was created in the 1970s. Synonyms for Winchester drives in Free Thesaurus. Computer data was written to and read from the disk's surface. HDDs continued to get smaller with the introduction of the 3.5-inch form factor by Rodime in 1983 and the 2.5-inch form factor by PrairieTek in 1988. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. At the time the IBM PC was introduced you could get it running either CP/M-86 or MS-DOS, and there was no clear indication that one or the other would win. removal storage is known as winchester disk . In 1974 IBM introduced the "Swinging arm" actuator, made possible because Winchester recording heads function well when skewed to the recorded tracks. As of May 2022, the largest hard drive is 26TB (while SSDs can be much bigger at 100TB, mainstream consumer SSDs cap at 8 TB). . Up until now, in this segment, the two main leaders, Syquest and Ricoh had reached 44 and 50MB respectively. The term Winchester comes from an early type of disk drive developed by IBM that had 30MB of fixed storage and 30MB of removable storage; so its inventors called it a Winchester in honor of its 30/30 rifle. The read/write head, much like the head on a tape deck, contacts the surface through an opening in the plastic shell or envelope. It held 5MB of data, at a cost of $10,000 per megabyte. A track density of 300 tracks per inch and an access time of 25 milliseconds were achieved. It cost $40,000. In 1969, IBM charged San Jose project manager Kenneth E. Haughton with developing a direct access storage facility that matched the performance of the high-end IBM 3330 system at a price attractive to low-end System/370 computer customers. It demonstrated a significant advance in technology, allowing an increase in recording density to 300 tracks per inch and 5600 bits per inch. Today, recordable CDs/DVDs, flash drives and cloud drives have since replaced floppies as the primary means of transporting files from one computer to another computer. History of the Floppy Disk. The author of this article Nigel Harley is a hard drive data recovery expert with a background in engineering. Webopedia focuses on connecting researchers with IT resources that are most helpful for them. In 1975, the model 5100 was an entirely self-contained, portable computer system - probably the first ever. She is known for her independent films and documentaries, including one about Alexander Graham Bell. By putting the head closer. See also Winchester. WINCHESTER DISK. The disk is essentially a platter made of aluminum or other base material, coated with iron-oxide or other magnetizable . After the Winchester, lubricated coating became the standard for mechanical hard drive development. In 1961, the IBM 1301 Disk Storage Unit was released, which utilized heads that floated on a thin layer of air. The term later referred to all fixed hard disks because the heads and platters are always encased in the same, sealed unit. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. Just as the Japanese have invaded the semiconductor industry, so did they take away part of the drive . The underlying system software, which we wrote from scratch, was interrupt driven, so we could support simultaneous I/O operations, such as keying in commands while the printer was running or typing ahead of the 10 character per second teletype. The ACB-4000A is a SCSI Winchester disk Controller that cont Home Support obsolete products ACB-4000A: ACB-4000A: The ACB-4000A is a SCSI Winchester disk Controller that controls two ST506/412 fixed and removable drives. Each hard drive plater is divided . One of the greatest repeating rifles of all time was introduced to an appreciative market in 1892, when Winchester brought out its brand-new, John-Browning-designed Model 1892 lever gun. Western Digital still manufactures its read-write head wafers in Fremont CA. The IBM 350 Disk File was developed under the code-name RAMAC by an IBM San Jose team led by Reynold Johnson. A Winchester disk is a Disk Stack. The .300 Winchester Magnum is a magnum cartridge designed to fit in a standard length action. This technology and its derivatives remained the sta. Memorex was the first company separate from IBM to produce an IBM-compatible disk drive in 1968. The simple design of the 62GV (Gulliver) drive,[14] invented at IBM's UK Hursley Labs, became IBM's most licensed electro-mechanical invention[15] of all time, being adopted in the 1980s for all HDDs, and still used nearly 40 years and 10 billion arms later. What are synonyms for Winchester drives? The History of Computer Peripherals: From the Floppy Disk to CDs, The First Historical Hobby and Home Computers, Top Inventions From the 1950s Through the 1990s, Create a Database Using Delphi's File Of Typed Files, Biography of Steve Wozniak, Apple Computer Co-Founder, String Types in Delphi (Delphi For Beginners). As opposed to other solutions, no new drive type or special software was required that impeded adoption, since all that was necessary was an already common USB port. A Quarter Century of Disk File Innovation. Lexar JumpDrive P30 USB 3.2 Flash Drive Review, Kingston IronKey Vault Privacy 50 Encrypted USB Flash Drive Review, MSI RadiX AXE6600 WiFi 6E Tri-Band Gaming Router Review. Although modern disk drives are faster and hold more data, the basic technology is the same, so Winchester has become synonymous with hard. Access times were from 50 to 205 milliseconds (ms). Assets of Spencer Company purchased by Winchester. IBM's 3340 Winchester disk system, introduced in 1973, was the first HDD to use a sealed head/disk assembly, which substantially improved performance and is now standard. [1] After considering technologies such as wire matrices, rod arrays, drums, drum arrays, etc.,[1] the engineers at IBM's San Jose California laboratory invented the hard disk drive. The announcement of the SQ5200 from Syquest was an event, a drive with a removable cartridge with a formatted capacity [] All Rights Reserved They can How To Defend Yourself Against Identity Theft. Sony Electronics announces the 3.5 inch floppy disk and drive, double-sided, double . | Next, Storage The term Winchester comes from an early . Hard drives today are measured in terms of gigabytes and terabytes, rather than megabytes-an amount of data that would have been almost unimaginable in the early history of computers. It had a 20MB capacity on two disk platters. IBM first introduced it as a 8-in diskette in 1971. It's called a micro Winchester drive, or rigid micro disk drive. What is the primary feature of a Winchester disk? Our applications programs were versions of HP assemblers, compilers and so forth, modified (by us, with HP's blessing) to use our logical devices for their I/O functions. In 1981, Sony introduced the first 3 1/2" floppy drives and diskettes. All three companies were shipping 4TB drives between 2011 and 2012. 5 Which is a better replacement for a floppy disk? This technology and its derivatives remained the standard through 2011. Not only was the sealed disk protected against dirt, the R/W head could also "fly" on a thin air film, very close to the platter. Hungary, Russia). [54]:Table 10 Today the three remaining firms all produce their units in the Pacific Rim. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The IBM3340 hard disk drive (HDD) that began shipping in November 1973 pioneered new low-cost, low-load, landing read/write heads with lubricated disks, and established what became the dominant HDD technology. . All Rights Reserved. Disk media diameter was initially 24 inches, but over time it has been reduced to today's 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch standard sizes. IBM 3340 direct access storage facility (Retrieved on 1.31.15 from. Antonyms for Winchester drives. "History of the Floppy Disk." Project head Kenneth Haughton named it after the Winchester 30-30 rifle because it was planned to have two 30MB spindles; however, the actual product shipped with two spindles for data modules of either 35MB or 70MB. The following interview was done with Richard Mateosian, who developed a floppy disk operating system for the first "floppies." All Rights Reserved. One interesting story about the 5 1/4-inch floppy disk was the way the disk size was decided. The Rise of Plug-Compatible Equipment Manufacturers . Hard drives continued to become smaller with the launch of the Integra Peripherals 1.8-inch disk in 1991 and the HP Kittyhawk 1.3-inch hard drive in 1992. Although modern disk drives are faster and hold more data, the basic technology is the same, so Winchester has become synonymous with hard. Drives with the larger 24-inch- and 14-inch-diameter media were typically mounted in standalone boxes (resembling washing machines) or large equipment rack enclosures. Winchester Disk. In 1991, IBM released its 0663 Corsair drive, the first hard drive to use magneto resistive heads. The IBM PC XT in 1983, included an internal standard 10MB hard disk drive and IBM's version of Xebec's hard disk drive controller, and soon thereafter internal hard disk drives proliferated on personal computers, one popular type was the ST506/ST412 hard drive and MFM interface. In 1964, Burroughs introduced the B-475 disk drive, with a head per track, as part of the B5500. Introduced in 1973 as the model 3340, the drive had one permanent and one removable spindle, each holding 30MB. What is the pie shaped wedge of a hard disk called? Our unit was marketed by Watford Electronics for use with the BBC Micro and has a serial number of M00612232. In 1973, IBM introduced the IBM 3340 "Winchester" disk drive, the first significant commercial use of low mass and low load heads with lubricated platters. Its removable disk packs were sealed and included the head and arm assembly. Drives with smaller media generally conformed to de facto standard form factors. Slim, trim, strong and easy handling, the 1892 chambered the same .32-20, .38-40 and .44-40 handgun calibers that Colt was offering in the Peacemaker, making the new design an instant success. Since 1995, more than 100 tech experts and researchers have kept Webopedias definitions, articles, and study guides up to date. It had three types of data modules: 35 megabytes, 70 megabytes, and 70 megabytes of which 0.5 megabyte were accessible with fixed heads. and a mechanism for establishing a correspondence between these and the hardware devices. The number of industry participants decreased to six in 2009 and to three in 2013. Manufacturing began in California's Silicon Valley in 1957 with IBM's production shipment of the first HDD, the IBM RAMAC 350. "History of the Floppy Disk." Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features. In 1973 the IBM Winchester Drive was introduced with three removable, sealed data modules. The term Winchester comes from an early type of disk drive developed by IBM that had 30MB of fixed storage and 30MB of removable storage; so its inventors called it a Winchester in honor of its 30/30 rifle. Western Digital (first named General Digital Corporation) was founded in California in 1970. A disk pack is a layered grouping of hard disk platters (circular, rigid discs coated with a magnetic data storage surface). - The contamination-free environment allows Winchester disks to employ much greater precision of data recording and accessing, resulting in greater density of data storage than the interchangeable disk packs. The Zip Drive and Zip Disk. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. Where did the name Winchester disk drive come from? The term Winchester comes from an early type of disk drive developed by IBM that had 30MB of fixed storage and 30MB of removable storage; so its inventors called it a Winchester in honor of its 30/30 rifle. Cybersecurity news and best practices are full of acronyms and abbreviations. [3], The commercial usage of hard disk drives (HDD) began in 1957, with the shipment of a production IBM 305 RAMAC system including IBM Model 350 disk storage. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Eventually that term fell out of favor for the easier to type "Hard Disk." The Winchester name came directly from the famous rifle, as IBM announced a 30 Meg removable over a 30 Meg sealed disk (presumably for backups) and called it a "30-30." So, this is a pre-Winchester "disk drive" posing next to its distant cousins. In today's business world, managed services are more critical than ever. It had 30 MB of fixed and 30 MB of removable storage; thus earning its nickname after the Winchester 30-30 rifle. Invented by IBM engineers led by Alan Shugart, the first disks were designed for loading microcodes into the controller of the Merlin (IBM 3330) disk pack file, a 100 MB storage device. There were some conditional commands (like IF DISK) for use in batch files. Not only was the sealed disk protected against dirt, the R/W head could also fly on a thin air film, very close to the platter. As well as being sealed and having low-mass, lightly-loaded heads, the Winchester disks had lubricated surfaces on which . 1982 - At the West Coast Computer Faire, Davong Systems introduces its 5MB Winchester Disk Drive for the IBM PC, for US$2000. The new Winchester hard disk drive was a revolutionary device, which revolutionised the way hard disks work and are built to the presence day. Omissions? 1961 Bryant 4000 (Bryant Computer Products division of Ex-Cell-O) up to 205MB on up to 26 29-inch diameter platters. The term for hard disk drive. Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology. Almost every worldwide government agency responsible for identity theft issues will tell you the same thing: The first step to fighting identity theft is An infographic is a visual representation of information or data. IBM. When did IBM start using microfloppy disk drives? This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. The nickname "floppy" came from the disk's flexibility. Named after the 3030 Winchester rifle, as the original device would have had 3030 as its IBM number. Policies obsolete product info (html 69 kb . Hard disk drives for personal computers (PCs) were initially a rare and very expensive optional feature; systems typically had only the less expensive floppy disk drives or even cassette tape drives as both secondary storage and transport media. What is a Winchester disk? 10 Early 2010s. This page was last edited on 27 February 2023, at 05:17. The RA81 connects to the controller via the Standard Disk Interconnect (SDI) bus. So, in effect, the first floppies were used to fill another type of data storage device. In 1973, IBM introduced a new type of hard drive codenamed "Winchester." Its primary distinguishing feature was that the disk heads were not withdrawn completely from the stack . Educalingo cookies are used to personalize ads and get web traffic statistics. your Winchester disk if those that are preset do not meet your needs. Both the hard disk drive and floppy . See also . Memorex shipped the first HDD, the Memorex 630, in 1968, plug compatible to an IBM model 2311 marking the beginning of independent competition (Plug Compatible Manufacturers or PCMs) for HDDs attached to IBM systems. These disk drives could be added to older PC models. By the 1990s the dollar value of magnetic recording devices produced by companies located in California's "Silicon Valley" exceeded the dollar value of semiconductor devices produced there leading some to suggest that a more appropriate name for this area would be "Iron Oxide Valley," after the magnetic material coating the disks. Find out inside PCMag's comprehensive tech and computer-related encyclopedia. Also in 1961, Bryant Computer Products introduced its 4000 series disk drives. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. A hard drive can be an internal or external device. Bellis, Mary. Winchester disk assemblies are put together in clean rooms so even microscopic dust particles do not get on the disk . In the 1980s 8-inch drives used with some mid-range systems increased from a low of about 30MB in 1980, to a top-of-the-line 3GB in 1989.[17]. Another term for hard disk drive. Join our Mailing List by adding your email address below and be kept up to date with lots of information including: The Centre for Computing History | Registered Charity No: 1130071, Watford Electronics 3 Winchester Hard Drive. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/invention-of-the-floppy-disk-1991405. The 1980s saw the minicomputer age plateau as PCs were introduced. The work at BSL was largely inspired by the late Rudolph Langer, who improved significantly on Hornbuckle's model. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. In 1961 IBM introduced the model 1311 disk drive, which was about the size of a washing machine and stored two million characters on a removable disk "pack." . Al Shugart identified this new Winchester head as one of the four most significant developments in mass storage. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. The significance of this product, and the reason that disk drives in general became known as "Winchester technology" had nothing to do with the configuration of the product. The industry grew slowly at first with three additional companies in the market by 1964, Anelex Corp., Bryant Computer Products and Data Products Corp.[51] The industry grew rapidly in the late 1960s and again in the 1980s reaching a peak of 75 manufacturers in 1984. The term Winchester comes from an early type of disk drive developed by IBM that had 30 MB of fixed storage and 30MB of removable storage; so its inventors called it a Winchester in honor of its 30/30 rifle. The name arose because the original 1973 engineering prototype for what later became the IBM 3340 featured two 30-megabyte volumes; 30--30 became "Winchester" when somebody noticed the similarity to the common term for a famous Winchester rifle (in the . The term Winchester comes from an early type of disk drive developed by IBM that had 30MB of fixed storage and 30MB of removable storage; so its inventors called it a Winchester in honor of its 30/30 rifle. Its primary distinguishing feature was that the disk heads were not withdrawn completely from the stack of disk platters when the drive was powered down. In 1961, it invented drive heads in the form of airfoils that hovered just above the surface of the disks, which is the standard for today. 1974 - IBM 62GV Gulliver, introduced the Swinging Arm Actuator, adopted for all HDD in the 1980s. The disk drive consists of one or more platters and heads, and the control mechanism with its associated electronics. Wiki User. The "30-30" storage capacities led to the Winchester nickname after the Winchester 30-30 rifle. 1983 - MAY. During the 1970s, captive production, dominated by IBM's production for its own use, remained the largest revenue channel for HDDs, though the relative importance of the OEM channel grew. The "Winchester" program pioneered the use of low cost, low-mass, low-load, landing heads with lubricated disks, becoming the dominant technology for at least . The 3340 also used error correction. The IBM 1301 Disk Storage Unit,[10] announced in 1961, introduced the usage of heads having self-acting air bearings (self-flying heads) with one head per each surface of the disks. 1990s computers become portable ", 1-2 of The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. | Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples The "30-30" storage capacities led to the Winchester nickname after the Winchester 30-30 rifle. Later generations progressively reached factories, offices and homes, eventually becoming ubiquitous. (See Manufacturing history for more details), In 2009 Fujitsu exits by selling HDD business to Toshiba[20], In 2011 Floods hit many hard drive factories. A Winchester disk is a Disk Stack. ahead of the pack IBM Marketing Brochure (May 1973), Mulvany, R. B. Engineering Design of a Disk Storage Facility with Data Modules. Our operating system had a set of logical devices (source input, listing output, error output, binary output, etc.) Three models were announced, the 3340-A2 with two drives and a controller, the models B2 (two . If you click an affiliate link and buy a product or service, we may be paid a fee by that merchant. These massive units stood 52 inches (1.3m) tall, 70 inches (1.8m) long, and 70 inches (1.8m) wide, and had up to 26 platters, each 39 inches (0.99m) in diameter, rotating at up to 1,200rpm. 2 pages It was followed in 1969 by the Memorex 660, an IBM 2314 compatible, which was OEM'ed to DEC and resold as the RP02. IBM started using the 720 KB double density 3-inch microfloppy disk on its Convertible laptop computer in 1986 and the 1.44 MB high-density version with the IBM Personal System/2 (PS/2) line in 1987. This technology and its derivatives remained the standard through 2011. The IBM 3340 Direct Access Storage Facility, code-named Winchester, was introduced in March 1973 for use with IBM System/370. Reviewing the history of the disk drive market in 1998, industry analyst Disk/Trend president James Porter described the 1980 introduction of the Seagate ST506 5.25-inch 5MB unit as the model "that created the biggest change in the industry.". Winchester disk definition, a hard disk that is permanently mounted in its unit. Apparatus and method for avoiding defects in the recording medium within a peripheral storage system, The IBM 3340 . A Winchester disk is a Disk Stack. * Some observers have noted that the 3340 was known as "Winchester" because its development engineers called it a "30-30" (its two spindles each had a disk capacity of 30 megabytes), the common name of a rifle manufactured by the Winchester Company.