Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

5 of 382 comments (clear)

  1. I'll drink to that! by mosb1000 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    You said it.

  2. Here's the explanation by pressesc · · Score: 1, Redundant

    This article should help you.

  3. What is the third dimension? by Dienyddio · · Score: 0, Redundant

    If we are to assume the standard spinning disk model is still used what is the third dimension?

    I find it hard to believe that drive heads will be able to move through the solid substrate of the disk which rules out a spatial dimension. Time based seems a little extreme.

    Do they mean magnetic field strength? This could be interesting but how do you know your value is the result of a write and not the loss of magnetic field over time?

  4. But... by Dunbal · · Score: 1, Redundant

    But the REAL question is: Will this be enough space to store Longhorn?

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  5. "Put another way..." by syntap · · Score: 0, Redundant

    ... for the forth time, for all the smart people reading /., it's 3D instead of 2D. Like a square and a cube to put it another way. Or another way is a geometric pyramid and an equalateral trianble. Or perhaps another descriptive avenue is a circle and a sphere.