In 1956 IBM introduced the first hard drive. In the 1960’s and 1970’s hard drives were not suitable for data backups because of their high cost, large size and low capacity. However, in the mid 1980s hard disks were already being considered for making data backups. In the early 1990s they became a real alternative for tape data backups. Today, the "battle" between tape and disk data backup still rages on, but it’s still not the best solution.