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Data Transfer Has A Speed Limit
ChrisHanel writes "Yahoo News is reporting that despite the infinite climb data speeds seem to be making, scientists at Stanford say we'll eventually hit a barrier due to the inability to keep the data stable after a certain transfer speed. But no worries just yet; the watermark they've set is still 1,000 times faster than what we have now." Apparently: "The scientists confirmed this problem by firing up the particle accelerator at Stanford University and blasting electrons at a piece of the magnetic material used to store computer data."
especially from reading The Rapidly Changing Face of Computing newsletter (now known as - The Harrow Report, it's that whatever barriers to computer speed increases are set up by theoreticists are quickly knocked down by other theoreticists who find ways around them.'
Of course, this doesn't mean that finding the barriers is a bad thing - it gives the next set of scientists something to aim for and pushes the boundaries of research.
A little planning goes a long way...
RAID arrays, SMP, GPRS, Data MUX's that use paralell fibre channels are all examples.
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
If we're still using magnetic discs for storing data, we'll of course still be able to increase the transfer rate by distributing data to read/write across multiple physical platters using something like RAID.
This limit is interesting but won't have any practical impact on our ability to store data at faster rates than the limit, should we find an application requiring it...
Every advancement in technology has to hit a limit at some point. I don't see how this could be any bit of a suprise if thats what the article is trying to insinuate. Speed of light, eventual size of microprocessors, width of fibres, strength of metals etc... There is no infinitely 'advanceable' technology which should be obvious. Technology has come a long way in the past 100 years as well, the limits we discover will only continue to be found quickly.
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
Latency != Bandwidth
Also, this article is about disk I/O, not network capacity. RTFA.
Actually you are quite right. To my knowledge the IT-industry are still using giant trucks loaded with storage to transfer data backups between datacenters. This method of transfering *huge* amounts of data will probably be faster than the pipes any datacenter have in place until the fibreoptical networks are so large and widespread that not having fibre in your household will be like not having a cellphone in mainland Europe.
"-Who said sit down?!"
-- S. Ballmer @ MSDC 2003.
Wow, tautological perfection. I've never seen such.
Yes, we can always show some (incomplete) "proof" that we can't do X. And then we usually end up doing X in a novel and unexpected way.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
And, BTW, FYI, FWIW, Moore's "law" is more of an empirical observation than any sort of real law, much less one that would apply in this case of magnetics without a transistor in (relevant) sight. I don't mean to detract from the clever, albeit obvious in hindsight, prediction of Moore. He simply observed (and presciently predicted) that there is (and will continue to be) a sustained exponential growth in the number of transistors per integrated circuit (that's "switches" per "chip" to you and me).
That has absolutely not one goddamn thing to do with this topic or the cited article, so STFU or RTFM first. Please.
everything in moderation
If you spin the disk more slowly, but have multiple heads then the limit probably doesn't apply- but the throughput would be the same.
And of course, you can always RAID your disks which does a similar thing. Or multiple platters, or...
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Hard drives today are like the good old magnetic tapes of yesterday. Huge storage, slow access. Access times are still in the milliseconds range, and transfer rates... Heck, transfer rates are ridiculously small compared to the huge capacities we are getting. Who cares about magnetization speed limit with those pending issues...
Yeah, it's so funny when people think they've learned biology and such from The Matrix.
well, no. bandwidth in this context is the time taken for it to be sent from origin A to destination B. origin being time taken to write the dvds, get them to the plane, load, flight time, unloading, haulage to destination, then read.
Doesn't make much sense otherwise.
This is just like so many predictions from modems - I remember hearing that over 9600 was impossible (and before that over 1200). Ditto for Moore's 'law'. Granted it is a great observation, but the predicted demise keeps getting pushed back.
While the article makes it clear it is for magnetic storage, the headline doesn't. And, as with all the other limits, smart people will work through the problems or change mediums.
This is just over-hyping a research article which is making a good point - that there are limits to current technology extrapolation.
Moore's Law should be put in the realm of economics, just as Say's Law. It is an observation on the _Behaviour_ of producers, who cater for a certain known demand and bet that their R&D expenses are reimbursed by higher prices for faster products. Because everybody is doing it, investing less means loosing market share, investing too much does not increase profits proportionately.
Some people seem to think that it is an physical law, because it has to do with microprocessors. if someone does make such an mistake, he deserves a STFU, as not to influence others with his uninformed opinion.
maybe the grand-parent-article thinks the barrier is temporary, and can be technically solved. RTFA:
"In order to go beyond this limit, some completely new technology will be required, of which we do not know anything yet," Pescia wrote.
we can not make affirmative statements on unknowns. THAT is ignorant.
as an economist, i say, that putting faith in economic laws is a receipt for failure, eventually ( at lim t-> infinite).
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As the Ideal Gas Law may be derived from the Kinetic Theory of Gasses. Note that it was the empirical observations that leant credence to the Theory. It conformed to them.
Empirical evidence is always the touchstone.
Note that the very link you provide states that Stefan derived his law experimentally a few years before Boltzman derived it theoretically.
Not that it really matters much. The key point is that it wouldn't have been considered a law until it had been derived empirically.
Then there's Einstein's Law of Absolutes, which is destined to remain the Special Theory of Relativity, even though it has been empirically verfied and show to hold up as well, or better, than the classical "laws" (for instance it rendered Newton's Law of Gravity into a mere special case of itself), but that has more to do with a shift in scientific philosophy in the 20th century. We don't actually hold much truck with laws any more.
We have mathmatical models.
Of course there are those that hold that mathmatics is the only reality.
Pythagoras lives!
KFG
. . .the parent.
Who to this day, decades after first encountering it, still finds it a stunningly beautiful theoretical demonstration that gasses must be composed of small particles that obey the laws of motion.
KFG
We've heard this sort of thing before back in the BBS days. No one thought we could get more than 9600 baud with a modem over the existing POTs. Now we not only have "56k" modems but DSL technology up to 8Mpbs over short runs (available now) with much higher speeds on the way. Someone always comes up with a probably/theoretical limit on bandwidth, processing power, etc, etc and someone else always comes along and finds a clever new way to break that limit. It's a long way off before we hit the limit they are talking about with our current technology. Who knows what we'll have by then. I mark this article as plus one interesting but minus several points for not being important from a realistic and practical standpoint.