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Next Wave Of Hard Drive Tech: Perpendicular Recording

Posted by timothy on from the dig-for-your-data dept.

angrytuna writes "New serial technologies are set to replace standard SCSI and ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) interfaces over the next two years, even as hard-disk drive manufacturers prepare for an entirely new form of bit storage. Perpendicular recording will replace longitudinal recording in storage devices, placing bits on end instead of lying them parallel on the disc surface, thus dramatically increasing the possible storage density."

6 of 380 comments (clear)

  1. Increased Reliability? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am less concerned about the amount of stuff I can put on a hard-drive, and more concerned that the next time I boot up my computer, that stuff will still be there, as harddrives get more and more high-tech, the reliability seems to be taking a big nosedive, how will this effect the reliability of future drives?

  2. And? by CompiledMonkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In the days of 250GB hard drives, who cares? All I'm concerned about is the speed of drives. Lets improve that for once...

  3. Transition from 3.5" to 2.5"? by MoreDruid · · Score: 4, Interesting
    From the article:

    HDD manufacturers said they expect to start replacing 3.5in. disk drives with smaller 2.5in. devices in enterprise products sometime within the next year.

    Why would they want to do this? Has it something to do with vibrations (or even shattering a disk) due to the extreme rpm's that these drives are running?
    I don't know much about this stuff, so could someone please enlighten me?
    --
    The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
    1. Re:Transition from 3.5" to 2.5"? by UniverseIsADoughnut · · Score: 4, Interesting

      well as it is now the platters in 3.5 inch drives are no longer 3.5 inches, they have been getting smaller as they bump up speed of drives. It's physics, you just can't get speed with a big disk. Since the density of the platters for storage has increase shrinking the diameter has been ok. 3.5 inch drive is more of a form factor at this point, not a actualy dimension for the platters. I think the platters for the WD raptor a 10,000 rpm SATA drive are about 2.5 inches across.

      I like the move to smaller drives, This will be nice as people try to make computers smaller. I would also like to see a mini cd DVD format with mini cd drive only drives, shrink things up some more.

      I'm curious when they will make platters about 1 inch across and stack them on a shaft a few inches long and lay them flat in a drive case, instead of a few vertical slow platters, a whole bunch of horizontal fast small platters.

      The drive is the hold up in speed. It's the mechanical aspects that get hit by physics the most. When they get drives that go faster they can come up with a bus for it without much trouble. But currently why design a interface for HDs that can do say 1 terabyte/s if the drive can't even do 1/1000th of that. The electronics are simple, the drives arn't.

      What ever happen to solid state drives?

  4. Re:Details? by HiggsBison · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Oh, to answer your question then:
    Instead of the magnetic field changes being lateral, they are vertical. Don't worry, the substrate is deep enough. It's really just another way to write smaller. Instead of long skinny areas being charged front to back, or back to front, the areas are oriented up and down.

    --
    My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
  5. how bits on end would work........ by Sean+Johnson · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have seen a few posts from folks not quite understanding how the "bits-on-end" approach works. Some were speculating that it might be holographic, multiple layers, or 3D and such. It is not at all that complicated as they are making it out to be. I heard it best described from Alan Shugart who started the company called Seagate. On an episode from "The Computer Chronicles" back in 1984 he described it as standing the magnetic particles on end to fit more in a given area, which is similar to how a cord of wood could fit into a given smaller area by standing them up on end instead of laying flat. So it really is simpler than you might imagine. Of course the implementation is anything but simple. This is especially evident by the fact that this idea was known as a way to increase storage density back in 1984, when even 200 million bits per square inch was not in a consumer product yet. It was merely in labs with thin film head technology poised to become the next big thing in a short time from that year.
    By the way, you can see old episodes of "The Computer Chronicles" at the Prelinger Archives collection.
    http://www.archive.org/movies/preling er.php.
    I believe Slashdot had a story about that a while ago. Good stuff! Great info can be had through those old episodes about computer history.

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    >>>>>> Chewie, take the professor in the back and plug him into the hyperdrive.