Winchester disk

n. An early type of hard disk.

[After the Winchester, , tradename for a .30-30 rifle, a rifle shooting a .30-caliber bullet with a powder grain size designation of 30 (from the disk's storage capacity of 30 MB and its access time of 30 milliseconds).]

Winchester disk

n (Computer Science) a type of hard disk in which disks are permanently sealed, together with read-write heads, in an airtight container to keep dust out [C20: named after the 3030 Winchester rifle, as the original device would have had 3030 as its IBM number]

Win′chester disk′

n. a hard disk permanently mounted in a hermetically sealed unit that is housed either within a computer's CPU or in an external disk drive case. [1970–75; from the designation for the prototype, 3030 (two disks of 30 megabytes each), the same as a well-known Winchester rifle. See .30-30]

Translations

Winchester disk

[′win·ches·tər ‚disk] (computer science) A type of disk storage device characterized by nonremovable or sealed disk packs; extremely narrow tracks; a lubricated surface that allows the head to rest on the surface during start and stop operations; and servomechanisms which utilize a magnetic pattern, recorded on the medium itself, to position the head.

Winchester disk

An early removable disk drive from IBM that put the heads and platters (disks) in a sealed unit for greater speed. Before the Winchester architecture, removable disks were like removable disks today, in which the read/write heads remain in the drive and make contact with the platter after the cartridge is inserted.

Introduced in 1973 as the model 3340, the drive had one permanent and one removable spindle, each holding 30MB. The "30-30" storage capacities led to the Winchester nickname after the Winchester 30-30 rifle. The term later referred to all fixed hard disks because the heads and platters are always encased in the same, sealed unit. See also Winchester.

The Winchester Disk

IBM's Winchester disk was a removable cartridge, but the heads and platters were built in a sealed unit and were not separable. (Image courtesy of IBM.)