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Toshiba 40GB Perpendicular Magnetic Record Drives
freitasm writes "Toshiba is now shipping a 40GB 1.8" hard disk, the first in the industry based on the PMR (Perpendicular Magnetic Recording) technology. The disk stores 40GB in a single platter, and there are plans to release a 80GB version later this year. The first models are already being used on Toshiba's new Gigabeat MP3 players." It's all part of their plan to squeeze more bits onto the head of a pin.
PhysOrg has an article on this as well
The MK4007GAL HDD 1.8-inch HDD packs 40GB on a single platter - the largest single-platter capacity yet achieved in the 1.8-inch form factor. This breakthrough technology sets new benchmarks for data density with the highest areal density currently on the market at 206 megabits per square millimeter (133 gigabits per square inch). The 1.8-inch PMR HDD is now shipping in Toshiba's new Gigabeat F41, enabling the MP3 player to store up to 10,000 songs.
"Toshiba has started an exciting new frontier for the HDD industry by leading the race to achieve this revolutionary technology, which has been the industry's aim for more than 20 years," said Scott Maccabe, vice president, Toshiba Storage Device Division. "PMR opens the door to products we haven't even begun to imagine, by removing the technical barriers inherent to packing more data on an HDD. Providing greater storage capacity on mobile disk drives allows Toshiba to give system OEMs the tools they need for next-generation digital information and entertainment devices."
Toshiba recently announced acquisition of a design center in Fremont, Calif., to help U.S.-based engineers and OEMs create new products using platforms such as PMR to span beyond the limits of today's conventional digital products. The 1.8-inch HDD form factor has been a critical component for consumer electronics products from MP3 players to handheld GPS systems and ultra-portable PCs. To date, Toshiba has shipped more than 14 million 1.8-inch HDDs since its introduction in mid-2000. The addition of PMR technology will increase capacity options for product designs beyond those currently on the market today, especially as Toshiba introduces an 80GB 1.8-inch HDD with PMR later this year.
PMR: The Technology Achievement
Toshiba is the first company in the storage industry to commercialize PMR, providing unsurpassed recording density and high operating reliability on its 1.8-inch HDD platform. The technology is based on a new magnetic disk structured to support perpendicular recording, a new high-performance perpendicular magnetic head, and disk and head integration technology that maximizes their combined performance.
Conventional longitudinal recording stores data on a magnetic disk as microscopic magnet bits aligned in plane. Although advances in magnetic coatings continue to improve data recording densities on HDD, when the densities become too extreme, the magnetic bits repulse each other due to in-plane alignment. Squeezing more bits on to a disk will eventually reach a point in which crowding degrades recorded bit quality. As such, HDD manufacturers face fast-approaching limits on storage capacities.
By standing the magnetic bits on end, perpendicular recording reinforces magnetic coupling between neighboring bits, achieving higher and more stable recording densities and improved storage capacity.
The areal density will be greater, so at the same rotational velocity the peak data transer rate should be around 1.15 ( sqrt(133/100) ) times as high as before. Seek times might also be reduced (for the same amount of data on the disk), but when both drives are full, I think the seek times would both be the same.
Ewige Blumenkraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpendicular_recordi ng
The ThinkPad X-series uses 1.8" drives to cut down on weight and size.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
In fact, it would almost certainly cost more if they tried to make a hard drive that had exactly 8 MB of space and no more because the parts for it are no longer mass produced. The easiest way would be to make a 40 GB hard drive and seal off everything after the first 8 MB. Of course who in the hell wants a 8 MB hard drive anyhow?
If you're an Apple person, then you're already likely seeing 120 GB drives as standard if you own an iMac or one of their other top tier computers. The same is probably true if you buy a gaming rig from Alienware or some other company that specializes in high performance computers.
As technology progresses to the point where it's easy and cheap to cram 120 GB into a hard drive then they will become more standard as we pave way towards bigger and bigger drives. Do most people really need 120 GB hard drive? Not really, in my opinion, but it'll be nice for the Google's of the world who want to give us 2 GB of inbox space.
Of course, people will continue to become more tech savvy and start to put more digital photographs and eventually videos on their computers. 40 GB can hold a lot of pictures, but 120 GB is better suited for having a lot of video content stored on your hard drive.
In 10 years we'll likely be measuring drive sizes in TB instead of GB, laughing about the days when computers only came with 40 GB HDs and single core processors, kind of like how we laugh about how computers from the 80's had HDs that measured in MBs and RAM that measued in KB!
I found this book earlier in the year.
It's pretty much the Bible for perpendicular magnetic.
Gets really in-depth.
Perpendicular Magnetic Recording
by Sakhrat Khizroev, Dmitri Litvinov
Ignorance is amusing, stupidity is annoying.
What's important is that these drives are single platter 1.8" drives. 40GB and 60GB 1.8" drives have been around for a while but they're double platter and are about 9mm high.
These drives would be great upgrades to tablets like the NEC Litepad.
Hiatachi has 500 GB 3.5 inch SATA drives out right now.
> The ThinkPad X-series uses 1.8" drives to cut down on weight and size.
Specifically the X40 series, the X30 series still use 2.5" drives, which are bigger but have many advantages. They're much faster, bigger, cheaper, and most importantly, there is competition from different manufacturers (Hitachi, Toshiba, Seagate, WD, Samsung, Fujitsu, all interchangable). With 1.8" drives you're basically stuck with one manufacturer for a given laptop.
There are only two 1.8" HD manufacturers, Toshiba and Hitachi, and they use incompatible connectors. The Toshiba looks like a shrunken 2.5" drive, while Hitachi uses the same connector from the 2.5" drive mounted on the side of the drive. The IBM X40 uses the Hitachi connector, while Dell uses the Toshiba in the Lattitude X1. I think most ultraportable laptops with 1.8" drives use the Toshiba connector, but as they rarely mention the HD manufacturer, for each model you'd have to find someone who has opened it to find out. Same thing for media players, I'm pretty certain iPods use Toshibas while the Rio Karma has the Hitachi drive. To make matters even more confusing, Hitachi has introduced another incompatible connector for 1.8" drives ("ZIF connector"), which seems to be mainly marketed to media player manufacturers.