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Category: Hardware
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Author: RobertCBusch
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What is the computer manual referring to when it says winchester drive? Is it the hard disk drive or is it the floppy disk drive?

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Submitted by Mlademarti on Tue, 2012-04-10 04:10. Comment Id: 53372

The term Winchester in computing refers to the hard disk drive. This term kept in use until today because it is a connection with the early disk drive type, developed by IBM in 1955 for IBM 305 RAMAC Disk drive,model IBM 350.

In 1973 the IBM developed model IBM 3340 Winchester, which  had 30MB of fixed storage and 30MB of removable storage,
so it was called Winchester in the honor of its 30/30  rifle.
Today we have modern disk drives which are faster and can storage more data,
but the basic technology is the same and that's why term Winchester become synonymous with hard disk drives.
 
Hard disk drive is a secondary type of memory, that is able to record and to permanently store data in digital form on a rotating plates which have a hard magnetic surface. There are external and internal .External hard drives have high capacity 
(up to several TB), but that's why they can be large as the computer case. Internal hard disks are much smaller, but they have  smaller capacity. The first hard drives were made by IBM in 1955 The (IBM 350 Disk File for his IBM PC 305), and inventor was Reynolds Johnson. It consisted of 50 disks with a diameter 61 cm and their total capacity was 5 million characters. 
 
 
He had a single head (instead of one at the surface) so the access time was very long. In 1973 IBM produced its first fully closed system (3340 "Winchester"). This name ("Winchester") remained in common use until the late 20th century and is still used in some languages Russian and Ukrainian.
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