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Hitachi Predicts 3D Hard Disks by Year's End

Posted by timothy on from the denser-better dept.

daria42 writes "Hitachi has announced that its perpendicular, or 3D, hard disks should be out by the end of 2005." From the article: "Today, hard drives record and store data in a longitudinal fashion, with the read/write heads scanning over a horizontal plane. In perpendicular recording, data bits are aligned vertically, allowing for more data to be squeezed into a finite area. Put another way, data will go from being stored on a two-dimensional XY grid to living in a three-dimensional XYZ space."

3 of 382 comments (clear)

  1. Vinyl stores information in 3D by millwall · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm tempted to say: "Nothing new move along"; but I appreciate that it's quite different when applied to digital media.

    Although storing information in 3D is nothing new, that's how you get music in stereo from a vinyl record.

  2. I almost don't care anymore by IronChef · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Current affordable hard drives are, well, pretty farking big already. I care a lot less about capacity now than reliability. I despise hard drives and look forward to the day when they are just a bad memory. (And I haven't even been burned badly, since I back up.)

    Give me a guaranteed 5-year lifespan on a drive, then you'll have my patronage... more gigs don't get my attention anymore.

    1. Re:I almost don't care anymore by Propagandhi · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm most excited for applications in DAPs and cameras than anything else, and I think Hitachi has the same idea (at least I seem to recall seeing some press releases on a similar note). Current 3.5" drives have already hit the 500 gb range, so increasing their capacity isn't a significant priority as most consumers really don't have 500 gb of crap they need to store.

      What this tech is really useful is making really small (1") drives for next gen DAPs. Whereas the highest density Hitachi currently (or rather, will soon, I don't think these have hit the market yet) offers is 30 gb/platter (that's a 30gb 7mm thick, 1 inch HD or 60gb 10mm thick, 1 inch HD) with this tech they say they can get over 100gb. That'd be awesome for a DAP, as you'd finally be able to compress large music collections losslessy, or have an even smaller HD (say, 3/4") that has enough capacity for your whole music collection in a lossy format.

      Either way, I'm excited to see their next gen (or two gens away or whatever) HD and the DAPs that use them. Hopefully Hitachi fixes the reliability issues they've been having (I know the Hitachi drive in the Rio Karma gets a fair amount of press, although mine has never had problems)...