IBM introduced the 3380 in 1980, the first commercial 1-gigabyte hard disk drive.
IBM announced the 3380 disk storage system in June 1980. Each sealed disk-storage module held about 2.52 gigabytes, while the drive’s individual disk assemblies provided roughly 1.26 gigabytes of capacity, a dramatic increase over earlier systems. The equipment was designed for large mainframe installations rather than home computers.
The 3380 used advanced thin-film heads and high-density magnetic storage technology. Its enormous capacity came with a correspondingly high price and large physical footprint by modern standards.
The drive is often described simply as the first gigabyte hard disk, though its exact capacity depends on whether the whole storage system or a single disk module is being measured. IBM’s achievement marked a major milestone in enterprise data storage.