Hardcard

Hardcard is the genericized trademark for a hard disk drive, disk controller, and host adapter on an expansion card for a personal computer.

Typically a hard disk drive (HDD) installs into a drive bay; cables connect the drive to a host adapter and power source. If the personal computer lacks an available bus on a compatible host adapter, then one may have to install an adapter into an expansion slot. The Hardcard supplies its own host adapter, and doesn't require an empty drive bay.

Plus Development, a subsidiary of Quantum Corporation, developed the first ISA Hardcard, and released it in October 1985. By June 1986, 28 of Plus Development's competitors were producing similar products. The term has been used generically to refer to any hard disk on a card.

Quantum Corporation formed the Plus Development subsidiary in 1983. Plus Development invested their efforts in developing a hard disk drive that the average computer owner could install easily without much technical knowledge.

By 1985, Plus Development had engineered their first Hardcard; it had a 10 megabyte (MB) capacity; its suggested retail price was $1,095. In the mid-1980s, hard drives were as small as 1.6 inches tall, but in order to fit into a single ISA PC card expansion slot a custom one-inch thick hard drive had to be designed. Having spent $15 million on the project, Plus Development started shipping Hardcard in October 1985, and trademarked the Hardcard brand in 1988.

The Hardcard provided the computer industry with the first one-inch-thick HDD, but it was an interface and form factor only compatible with the full length card slot of the ISA bus first introduced with the IBM PC. As such it had a thicker head disk assembly than the subsequently introduced 1-inch high standard form factor 3½-inch HDDs.

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