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

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

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!

--

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...


--

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? :)