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New Lubricant Leads To Faster Hard Drives
azav writes "We all know about Moore's Law as it applies to chip speed but little attention is publicly made to the challenges of increasing speed in hard drives. A recent discovery in polyester (yes, polyester, you disco baby) lubricants will allow for faster and longer lasting hard drives."
Hard Drive Speed doesn't seem to be the problem... S-ATA suits me just fine.
What I really worry about is hard drives not getting any bigger. It seems progress has stopped at about 350 - 400gig and no prospect of going anywhere.
My laptop runs cool, except for the left palm rest, where the hard drive is inside the case. After a few hours of gaming, it can be VERY hot. Would better lube allow for portable drives to run cooler?
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But will they make it to market before memory cards large enough and cheap enough to feasibly replace hard drives altogether do?
Art Schools Dietzilla
While it's all very nice, the problem is easily ignored if one would just go for solid state HDs. Why is it so damn hard to come up with a simple system? I don't care if it's 5 1/4 device with 20gb at 200 euros. Think of the MASSIVE speed and reliability increases...
Hate me!
The oddest materials pop up for load bearing duties.
"Felt bearings" have been used in the automotive industry for years.
Especially in rack and pinion steering system where lateral forces are not so high.
Lubricants for the felt material include oil and graphite powder, or run dry.
While more durable bearings such as needle roller, bronze sleeve, and teflon bushings, may be the preference of performance applications, ease of fitment, damping ability, and cost, still ensures felt bearings are used today, both in automotive and other industrial machinery. It is very possible, you have owned a car with one or moore felt bearings somewhere in the steering system.
The properties of synthetic material as a bearing surface have been used and far back as 1950's(and maybe beyond).
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
Won't the heat of the hardrive heat the lube up? And if so, won't it smell bad?
You've got to admit that the innuendo in that headline is... um... somewhat unsubtle.
To be honest, I always suspected the term "hard drive" was invented as a sick inside joke by computer geeks, (along with a few other very suspect phrases).
But what really convinced me was when I went to South Africa and discovered that a 3.5" floppy disk is known over there as a "stiffy disk". Ostensibly, the original idea was to differentiate them from the older 5.25" floppies, but you've got to admit that whoever came up with that one must have known what he was doing.
I'm not usually one to laugh at blatant innuendo, but the first few times I heard that phrase being used, it absolutely cracked me up - not just for the phrase itself, but for the fact that no-one else seemed to get the joke. To them the phrase is completely natural: A South African computer geek can get away with telling people that he's got a stiffy in his pocket, and it won't even raise a smirk.
(having said that, it's been a while since I've used a stif... uh, a 3.5" floppy, so I can't be sure the phrase is still current - SA readers, feel free to correct me)
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
Could this be used on engines? I know that oil carries away heat, as well as lubricates, in internal combustion engines.
If they find a way of coating parts and use some kind of anti-freeze in vehicles, maybe internal combustion engines will last longer. Two strokes could make a come back.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
I've often wondered about the rate of evaporation on fluid-bearing HDs. Running at high temperatures, even the lowest level of evaporation will mean a loss of lubricant over the years. Even inside the semi-sealed chamber of the drive, each on-off cycle will mean that the drive exhales the evaporated lubricant and the cooling pattern of a turned-off drive will mean condensation of lubricant on the inside shell of the case.
Ball-bearings (well-designed ones at least) can last virtually forever. I wonder if the same can be said for fluid bearings?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
It makes me wonder what are the possible operating temperatures of this lubricant and how much of a viscosity difference we would see from the standards of today compared to this new lubricant that is added.
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
I'm told that Australians have a similar reaction when they hear people talking about getting "root access"...
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
It is surprising how often improvements in our computer technology comes from relatively mundane sources. For example, much of the reason that Moore's Law has continued to hold is the way that the mechanical engineers have been able to constantly improve our ability to position things accurately. Masks and wafers must be positioned with astonishing (at least to me) accuracy relative to each other in order to allow creation of 90 nm features.
But let's be realistic about time scales here. CF is not replacing harddrives next month or even next year. We are talking probably 5+ years until it is realisticly at the price level and capacity where it's a serious contender for most systems. In the interm, it would be nice to have better harddrives. It's a proven, widely used technology. Making it better is nothing but good.
Just because there is potentially something better some years off doesn't mean you want to stop working on what you've got now. Quantum computers stand to make current computers looks like abacuses. However, they won't be around for many years, if at all, so it's not like we want to pack up and stop working on current chip technology.
I too envision a future where one doesn't have RAM and disk, you have one permenant memory storage that holds everything, because it's more than fast enough. However I realise that such a ting is many years off. Even the next logical step, replacing mechanical drives with solid state ones, isn't happening for a few years at least.
Having also lived in ZA for a few years, the other thing that cracked me up was the way they pronounce 'router'. In ZA, they pronounce it as 'r-oo-ter', as if you were pronouncing 'hooters'. In Australia, 'root' is another term for sex. I personally preferred to pronounce it as 'r-out-er'.
PLD.
Polyester is made from petrochemicals, this synthetic is also non-biodegradable, so it is inherently unsustainable on two counts. Making polyester uses large amounts of water for cooling, along with lubricants which can become a source of contamination. The processes is also very energy-hungry.
IM willing to live with a little less speed, and a little more ecology in my future computer thank-you.