Macintosh Hard Disk 20

Background

The Macintosh Hard Disk 20 was the first hard drive developed by Apple specifically for use with the Macintosh 512K. Introduced on September 17, 1985, it was part of Apple's long awaited solution toward completing the Macintosh Office (a suite of integrated business hardware and software) announced in January 1985. At the time when the average file size was around 10-20 kB and due to the vast number of those files the HD 20 could contain, Apple's original Macintosh File System, which did not allow for directories, would have made organizing those files unwieldy. Therefore, Apple introduced it with a new System and Finder update which included the brand new Hierarchical File System allowing the user to better organize files on such a large volume. As a result, only the Macintosh 512K could access it; the original Macintosh 128K did not have enough RAM to load the new file system. Most of the hard drives which were available on the market used the slower serial port to transfer data per Apple's specifications. Apple instead engineered the HD 20 to use the faster floppy disk port, enabling the user to daisy-chain an external floppy disk drive as well as an additional HD 20.