Hehe, CD's to me were more important in the 20th century, I dunno why tbh, but hard drives never really "changed" the way we use and share data. They have always seemed pretty boring, but I do agree, where the hell would be without them haha!
I think whilst hard drives have remained quite static and boring, CD's, in one form or another, progressed to change our lives so much in the 80's and 90's. Hard Drives really became exceptional in the very latter 90's, when they finally started reaching decent capacities and breaking technological barriers.
Judging by your mugshot, you're a bit young to remember when the rate of change of hard drives was really amazing. The curve has flattened off now, barring a major technical advance they struggle to increase the recording density by a really significant amount.
I got my first software job in 1982. We coded on a DEC PDP-11, with three hard drives attached, which meant a stack about four feet tall and 18 inches square. The TEN MEGABYTE media itself was removable, say about four inches deep and 12 inches in diameter (for any other old DEC people out there, I'm trying to describe an RL02). Yes, that was 12 programmers writing applications with a combined 30 Megs of hard drive space between them.
Four years later, in another job, where I had to set up the development system from scratch, then a 300 Megabyte drive had suddenly become a box about nine inches square and four inches high.
Now THAT is what you call a decent rate of progress!
Brian.