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Terrabit Per-Square-Inch Hard Drive
BitGuy writes: "Physics News Update reports that current GMR (giant magnetoresistance) harddisk technology will not achieve terrabit-per-square-inch densities. Experiments with EMR (extra-ordinary magnetoresistive), which exceeds 100Gb/in^2 have been successful in the lab. There is even a diagram of the read head if you're interested."
Hmm... I wonder how they got dirt and the like to such high density... did they mean Terabit?
-- Huh?
What a bizarre way to report the story. The news is not that terrabit densities have been achieved; rather, that GMR will not be the technique that will get us there. Hardly news at all.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
I'm not buying another one until it comes with Super Duper Magnetoresistance.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
Giant magnetoresistance (GMR) and tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) hard disk technologies cannot achieve Terrabit per square inch performance. Neither can the "extraordinary" magnetoresistive (EMR) hard disk that is proposed. It is hoped that in the near future "extra-extraordinary" magnetoresistance (EEMR) hard disk technology is developed, and then perhaps "goddamn-extraordinary" magnetoresistance (GDEMR).
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
GMR (giant magnetoresistance) harddisk technology will not achieve terrabit-per-square-inch densities. Experiments with EMR (extra-ordinary magnetoresistive), which exceeds 100Gb/in^2 have been successful in the lab.
After that, comes IMR (improbable magnetoresistive) where the Library of Congress fits in a square inch.
Finally, new advancements in subatomic physics leads to LMR (ludicrous magnetoresistive), giving more bits of storage than there are atoms on the platter. The "flavor" and "color" of each quark are directly manipulated and sampled by the drive head.
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I recall some things from some years ago where there were even transparent colored cubes that looked like things straight out of Star Trek, but they had problems with the registration. It was next to impossible to reseat the cube exactly correctly so that you could retain access to your data. but obviously, other solutions have worked well.
I would love for the cost of these things to come down to something reasonable for the consumer. Recalling the old Tandy laptops that some folks still use, one of advantadge of them is their virtual indestructability, all because of the solid state memory drives inside. (admitting they are small, but they work very very well indeed)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Curiously - apart from mass data storage repositories for corporations, does anyone think we'll reach a limit to the amount of data we'll need as individuals?. While we're creeping towards (and will pass) terabyte sized drives and the ability to store every piece of documentation about ourselves, it seems to me (and this may be shortsighted) that all we have left to use is high quality media files relating to our own lives.
How much would you record of yourself, your actions - in sound, video, feelings if you could... and would you edit it down, or keep everything you could.
(pondering, more than posting)
a grrl & her server
Common, when will you FINALLY adopt standards? ;-)
When you finally do, I'll go drink a pint of beer and a eat a pound of cheese at the pub, two yards from here
JB
What this article is saying is that there is a new technology to move to when GMR hits it's limits. 3.5" drives won't stop at 180 GB per platter in 2 years. EMR will pick up where GMR left off and we should be able to see 1 TB per platter before they need to invent the next new technology.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
...winchester drives came out, folks were talking about how small the read gaps were and the damage a human hair or a smoke particle could cause if it got between the read head and the platter. Since hard drives were the size of a washing machine, it was pretty amazing to think that a smoke particle could ruin it. Disk drives "fly" the heads as close as they can to the platters to minimize the area being affected by the read/write signaling.
So at what point does the surface of "perfectly clean" material get so inherently bumpy that it's impossible to go any further without crashing into the random atom that sticks above its neighbors? Given the bumpiness induced by thermal agitation, are hard drives of the future going to have to be cooled just to get the heads in close enough?