IBM Increases HD Density with "Pixie Dust"

jeffsenter writes "CNET and the AP have stories on IBM's latest major advance of HD density. "Technically called antiferromagnetically-coupled (AFC) media and informally referred to as "pixie dust" at IBM, the innovation introduces a thin layer of the element ruthenium onto the disks inside hard drives where data is stored."" I knew it. Everyone told me through was no pixie dust in computers - but The Truth shall set you free!

Comments

Don't expect large numbers of these

[Masem]

Ruthenium is an extremely rare element, moreso than platinum. It's not valued as expensively as platinum only because it lacks a lot of the useful properties that platinum does have (eg very high melting temperature, chemical resistence), and is usually a byproduct of platinum mining in the first place. I've heard through word of mouth that there is probably no more than ~ 1,000 gallons worth of pure atomic ruthenium known in the world and not currently in use. (Fortunately for us, Ru was considered at one point as a major component in the catalytic converter for cars, but other, more abundent but more expensive materials were found instead.) While each drive that might use Ru in this way would only use a tiny tiny fraction of that 1,000 gallons, a run of drives in the millions could easy make a marked depletion in the supply.

Re:The only sad thing is...

[Tim C]

It's not that programmers are getting sloppy, it's that the designers are getting more ambitious.

The core code of most games probably doesn't take up much more than a few megabytes (I'm at work, so I can't check :-) ). What takes up all the space is all the graphics, sound and fmv. Now that we have large drives, lots of memory and fast processors and graphics cards, the designers and graphic and sound artists can really let themselves go and create visually and aurally rich games.

The reason that games need more and more disk space is that people like me demand ever larger, prettier and better sounding games. It has nothing to do with programmers not bothering to space-optimise their code. (Indeed, you often have a choice between optimising for speed or space usage; given that choice, I know which will be done)

Cheers,

Tim

Just an idea

[acidrain]

Police arrested Edward Peel at 4:30 PM yesterday for grinding up all the harddrives in the data center where he worked. He was found with a metal grinder, and a bucket of ground harddrive chassis, sitting on top of the largest rack. "But I will be able to fly" he told police before being taken away. The remote backup storage firm that employed him has not been available for comment.

Cute name... how the heck does it work?

[devphil]

The only clue as to what this stuff does is this tidbit in the AP article:

It addresses the problem of a so-called ``superparamagnetic effect,'' in which data gets lost when the magnetic regions of a disk get too small.

I guess that sortof helps. A little.

So, I take it that antiferromagnetically-coupled dust mites increase the blargle factor of a magnetic region? (For some suitable meaning/value of blargle.)

Re:Cute name... how the heck does it work?

[selectspec]

The problem IBM is solving is a general distorted magnetic irregularity in the medium surface. This irregulatirty limits the area dedicated to a bit to a certain minimum size, otherwise the bit would "blend" in with the background noise of the medium. I imagine that this new pixie-dust vastly reduces the magnetic variance/distortion. Thus, allowing for finer resolution of the bit area.

Wonderful stuff, that dust!

[The_Messenger]

I had a chance to visit IBM's facilities in Research Triangle recently, and I can vouch for the fact that this "pixie dust" is pretty amazing. It's applied to the disk in units called HITS, or "Hyper-Inductive Transfer Systems". I didn't pick up much of what the engineers were saying, however, because after three or four HITS of dust the damned winged blue monkeys became too distracting.

The monkeys appear to be related to this dust, but the exact nature of the relationship lies just beyond my grasp. Perhaps they have something to do with the genetic experiments conducted by one IBM's former business associates, Germans I believe.

Hopefully these HITS of dust will be available to the mass market soon!

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Goes with the Magic Blue Smoke

[Nuncio]

I've always known they put Magic Blue Smoke into computer components. It's undetectable, but you can definitely prove it's there. When you let the Magic Blue Smoke out of the device, the device doesn't work anymore. This goes for anything that uses electricity. :-)

Re:Network Elves

[micromoog]

Don't forget to put a bit bucket under the open cable when you go looking for the token. That way, you can catch any data that falls out, and pour it back in the cable before reattaching it.

Re:How to get rich

[proletariat]

The density of Ruthenium is 12.45 grams/cc. If Ru is $30/gm then 1000 gallons would cost $1.4 billion (if you could somehow hold the price at $30 even as it becomes more and more scarce).

At this density and with a molecular weight of 101.07 grams/mole then a 3.5 inch disk 3 atoms thick would require 0.0000552 grams of Ruthenium. IBM could make a million disks for $1700 worth of Ruthenium

Re:IMB Always has been doing great things

[hillct]

The Required posting of theory behind antiferromagnetically-coupled media http://www.aps.org/meet/MAR01/baps/abs/S6820002.ht ml. Interesting Stuff...


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What is going on at IBM?

[OpCode42]

"Peace, love and Linux"

"Our new hard drives have pixie dust in them!"

Whats next? IBM OpenAcidTab 1.0? :)

Solid State and the Pixie Dust Whitepaper

[Si_Druid]

Yo, so a few more related IBM links from this late reporter...

IBM Research's announcement w/ a link to the whitepaper on the new tech:
http://www.research.ibm.com/resources/news/2001051 8_pixie_dust.shtml

IBM Think Research article on Solid-State RAM (eventually storage, too?):
http://www.research.ibm.com/thinkresearch/pages/20 01/20010202_mram.shtml

Si.