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Hitachi Goes Perpendicular

Posted by Zonk on from the get-perpendicular dept.

Nimrangul writes "Hitachi has recently announced perpendicular recording with their harddrives, allowing for 10 times the data storage on a disk, meaning 20 G microdrives are on their way as soon as 2007. Hitachi is so pleased with this technological development that it has broken into song." This is, without a doubt, the most surreal thing I've seen today. Flash Required.

15 of 319 comments (clear)

  1. Re:For Your Referencing Pleasure by generalleoff · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yea they did. But I think they did it just lame enough to be funny as hell :)

  2. Marketing works by nysus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hitachi (ah, see, I remembered the brand) has succeeded in getting everyone to believe that they are on the cutting edge of hard drive technology. While that may or may not be true, the key point is that perception is being largely disseminated by a cartoon and not hard data or facts. Interesting.

    --

    ---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.

    1. Re:Marketing works by Maxiosu · · Score: 4, Insightful

      think about it - viral marketing at work.

      we're all going to post this on our blogs/webpages and spam it out in forums/irc to laugh at hitachi... thus promoting their new technology

      I, for one, welcome out new smarter than the average slashdotter overlords

    2. Re:Marketing works by Detritus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Considering that Hitachi acquired IBM's hard disk drive operation, which is responsible for most of the advances in drive technology over the past 50 years, I think it's fair to consider them leaders in drive technology.

      --
      Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
    3. Re:Marketing works by Patik · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Yeah, but who outside of Slashdot readers knows that?

      The point is that the cartoon can get the point across to a different type of audience, particularly the ones who want bigger and better MP3 players.

  3. Re:Oh God! by metlin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Are you *kidding* me?

    That was cool, catchy, geeky, original and quite imaginative, all at the same time.

    I for one think it was really, really well done.

    Get perpendicular...tra la la!

  4. the perpendicular lifestyle... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm dancing! I'm dancing!

    This was insanely clever. Will be a cult video within days... You have to admit it does educate...

  5. Re:Interesting... by mrchaotica · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If the psychotic flash video is accurate, the bits are closer together. Wouldn't that mean the data could be read at a faster rate without increasing the rotational speed of the disk?

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  6. Re:If you can get high before you watch this by ZeroZen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Need a mod option AWESOME

  7. Is the cartoon accurate? by boingyzain · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The cartoon was cute and all, but what I'm wondering is if its really accurate or not. Are bits really these square pieces on a platter? I always had the impression that they were magnetic grooves in the platter (thus why you dont put a magnet near it). I don't see how you could make grooves perpendicular, so I guess I'm wrong. I did RTFA, but it would be great to see a better explanation of it!

  8. Yep. Today slashdot, fark, etc, tomorrow... by WoTG · · Score: 2, Insightful

    the other major news sites online and offline will all be talking about Hitachi's great technology to store 30 000 mp3's on the next ipod mini. A few bucks of marketing VERY well spent.

    Double points for doing this with something so technical that most /.'s, never mind the general public, wouldn't be able to understand from a generic press release.

  9. Re:people dont want big storage anymore by KingSkippus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Just my anecdotal experience is that hard drives are bigger and more reliable these days than they were back in the days of those old clunkers. Especially when you take into consider the higher demands we're placing on them.

  10. Re:If you can get high before you watch this by October_30th · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't think you can use a 32-bit Flash plugin in a Firefox compiled using 64-bit libraries...

    --
    The owls are not what they seem
  11. Re:Bigger is better... maybe by David+Horn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hard drives aren't big enough for me. You ever tried working with more than an hour or so of uncompressed DV footage? Runs at nearly 1GB/minute, and if you have to edit it, you need yet another drive to dump the finished product on to if it's not going back to the camera. Modern drives are fast enough for what I want to do with them - roll on 1TB and above!

    --
    PocketGamer.org - For the gamer on the go!
  12. Re:Perpendicular! by timeOday · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I mean just think if you could buy one drive that has 50gb of space from Maxtor, or you could pay something like 10% to 15% more and get a 500gb from Hitachi.
    IMHO this never happens. Economics combined with patents almost guarantees there are never sudden leaps in price/performance. Even if the new tech is much cheaper to make, why price it below what is necessary to beat the competition?