Rolled out in 1980, the IBM 3380
Direct Access Storage Device gave customers the
ability to store up to 2.52 billion characters of
information -- almost four times the amount of previous
IBM storage devices. To meet the need for growth,
a "string" or group of four 3380s could
store more than 10 billion characters of information,
and each IBM 3880 Storage Control could control
up to two strings of four 3380s. The design models
shown here illustrate the 3380 at left and the 3880
at right.