IBM 75G Hard Drive Ready

Thomas Holme writes, "The Deskstar 75GXP sets a new standard in disk drive performance with a maximum media data rate of 444 megabits per second (Mb/s) and 8.5 milliseconds (ms) average seek time, delivering optimal multimedia performance and video playback." You can read more about it at IBM's hard drive page. I can't believe I bought a 40g just two weeks ago! Bah. Course 75 gigs is like 1500 hours worth of MP3s, but for some reason going two months without listening to the same song twice seems like an admirable goal.

Comments

More disk we can't afford to back up.

[bareman]

When is someone going to come out with an affordable backup system so that we can ensure the reliability of these large data stores?

Contemporary Cybernetics is actually proud that it costs $1.63 USD /GB to use their drives/media compared to $2.20 /GB to use DLT. Both of these prices are insanely high.

Backup costs have barely come down in price in the last 7-10 years (only about 40%). While disk space has become about a thousand times more affordable.

Can someone please come up with a more affordable solution?

Re:Glass Platters - How do they make them strong e

[Tau Zero]

How do they make the glass strong enough? Is it somehow reinforced with strengthening fibers or similar?

I'd guess not. These disks are TINY; the 40GV states "an areal density record of 14.3 billion bits per square inch." With 5 platters, you'd only need about 6 square inches per platter, double-sided. You make some assumptions about the hub-diameter ratio, and the diameter comes out to about 2.5 inches. The "exposed" portion of the platter (sticking out beyond the hub) would only be about 5/8 inch (or even less for a larger outside diameter). Plus, they're probably using borosilicate or other glasses which are a lot stronger than soda glass, and on top of that they have to polish them to extremes to get the surface they need with the consequent elimination of stress concentrations from surface defects. All of this adds up to a level of durability you'd never suspect from the result of dropping your tumbler on the kitchen tile.
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