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Nanotube Lube Replenishment for Massive Drives

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the elderly-celebrity-spokespeople-sought dept.

PetManimal writes "Techworld reports that Seagate has just patented something called 'Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording,' which features nanotechnology and could lead to a 1.46TB 2.5-in. drive. The article says 'Storing data properly in extremely small areas requires the magnetic material to be heated during the writing phase, but this causes the lubricant film deposited on top of the magnetized recording layer to evaporate. Seagate's patent resolves this problem by having a reservoir inside the disk casing that contains nanotube-based lubricant. Some of this is periodically pumped out as a vapor and deposited on the surface of the disk, replenishing the evaporated lubricant.'"

30 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. good idea! by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 5, Funny

    Some of this is periodically pumped out as a vapor and deposited on the surface of the disk, replenishing the evaporated lubricant.

    Hey, I could use some of this this! Oh wait...it says disk...

    --
    This guy's the limit!
    1. Re:good idea! by op12 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yeah, you probably read 2.5in and made a quick logical jump.

      ...I couldn't help myself - you left the door wide open on that one.

    2. Re:good idea! by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 4, Funny

      Hey, they don't call it a nanotube for nothin'...

      --
      This guy's the limit!
  2. Lube......replenishment you say? by LordPhantom · · Score: 4, Funny

    Lube replenishment?
    For.... massive drives?
    Some headlines just write themselves. And don't mod me down, you were thinking about how cool it would be to have a peripheral that would do that - this is slashdot, don't lie!

    1. Re:Lube......replenishment you say? by russ1337 · · Score: 3, Funny

      I can see it now...

      Tech guy: "Your hard drive is out of oil"

      Customer: "what the f*&k? Pull the other one.."

      Tech guy:"Yeah, I'm gonna have to take it into the shop and give it an oil change, you know, new nano-tubes... "

      Customer "Get the flock outa here and dont come back.... oil... nano.. WTF.."

    2. Re:Lube......replenishment you say? by TubeSteak · · Score: 2, Funny
      Tech guy: "Hey, in just the last five years the internet upgraded from nanotubes to fullsize tubes. Look how much faster the internet is and I can upgrade the nanotubes in your hard drive to match"
       

      /Note to russ1337: Always upsell the customer.

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
  3. KY by tedgyz · · Score: 2, Funny

    Can I get the KY Jelly version to store all my pr0n?

    --
    "No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
    1. Re:KY by tedgyz · · Score: 4, Funny
      Oh wait, this is slashdot, I'm probably in the 0.01% of people here who get laid.

      Use of your favorite lube does not necessarily imply that you got laid. :-)
      --
      "No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
  4. Drives needing lube? by CRiMSON · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wonder if this will lower the mean time to failure of these drives? I currently have some old 9G scsi disks that have been running daily since 1998/1999 and still work flawlessly. How much lube are they putting in these drives? It seems to me this could be bad thing(tm) put enough lube in for 3 years, and every 3 years sell new drives.

    --
    oogly boogly!
    1. Re:Drives needing lube? by Gat0r30y · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Seagate has a 5 year warranty on every drive. It is intended that the lube will last the life of the drive.

      --
      Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
    2. Re:Drives needing lube? by Kadin2048 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Seems like a nice way to ensure that everyone buys new hard drives every few years; once they go out of warranty, they run out of lube, and consequently come to a screeching halt.

      King Gillette would be proud.

      --
      "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
  5. Precisely timed warranties by bo0ork · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So when we see the warranty on those disk, it won't be 1 year, it'll be 8760 hours. I mean, talk about throw-away society. These things would come with probably extremely toxic non-refillable containers that are guaranteed to be emptied out at the most inopportune moment.

    --
    Does everything include nothing?
    1. Re:Precisely timed warranties by amliebsch · · Score: 2, Funny

      These things would come with probably extremely toxic non-refillable containers that are guaranteed to be emptied out at the most inopportune moment.

      You're not thinking like a businessman. The drives will be cheap - cheaper than the competition, anyways. Enough to make it look like a good deal, anyways. It's the semimonthly proprietary branded cartridges of drive oil that will cost a small fortune...

      --
      If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
  6. so what happens when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    so when the resivoir empties, your 1.5TB of data evaporates with whatever is left over of the nanotubes?

  7. Correct me if I'm wrong... by The+Living+Fractal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    .. But, after reading about this days ago, I was under the impression the lubricant itself wasn't 'nanotube based' but rather was distributed across the platters in a controlled fashion via nanotubes. Insofar that the tubes themselves only allow a certain, small, amount of the lubricant to escape and only when the absence of lubricant on the surface produces enough differential pressure to allow it.

    And, incidentally, the ten year life of the lubricant reservoir should be sufficient IMHO. I can't imagine in ten years we'll still be using the same hard drives anyway. I think Seagate is banking on it.

    TLF

    --
    I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
    1. Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... by mrxak · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Oh good, at least one person is actually talking about the article. Do you have a link to whatever it was you were reading a few days ago?

      I should think that 10 years would be enough, assuming capacities keep going up at about the same rate they have been. However, is this is average usage, or heavy? I tend to give my hard drives a pretty heavy workout, and if that cut the time down to 5 years, I'd be pretty upset.

      --
      -mrxak
      Onions Will Kill You
    2. Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... by Cheerio+Boy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And, incidentally, the ten year life of the lubricant reservoir should be sufficient IMHO. I can't imagine in ten years we'll still be using the same hard drives anyway.

      Remind me to tell that to my DEC RA82 I have at home. ;-)

      --

      "Bah!" - Dogbert
    3. Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... by The+Living+Fractal · · Score: 5, Informative

      http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/07/04/seagate_leaky_dr ives/

      TG Daily a few days ago.

      Perfluoropolyether is the lubricant. And it's not 'nanotube-based' at all. It's delivered via the tubes.

      From the article: "Vapor PFPE also surrounds the platter. As the drive spins, areas of the platter will get hot, which will wear out the lubricant. The vapor PFPE deposits on the platter to replace the worn out lubricant. The "condensing" vapor lowers vapor pressure which then draws out lubricant from the CNTs until the pressure is equalized."

      It does say the reservoir will provide ten years of 'practical' use. For someone who uses their hard drives a LOT (maybe someone without enough RAM? :)) I could see this lasting only 7-8 years. Still quite a while IMHO.

      TLF

      --
      I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
  8. Vaporware? by Gates82 · · Score: 4, Funny
    No release date yet, so can we classify this as vaporware?

    --
    So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's Sister?

  9. Yuck.... by tktk · · Score: 2, Funny

    Digital pron? Check
    1.46 TB? Check
    Lube Replenishment ? Check

    Ok, confession time. Who's already masturbating to this article?

    1. Re:Yuck.... by tgd · · Score: 2, Funny

      I read Slashdot for the pictures.

  10. no new business for jiffylube by atarione · · Score: 2, Interesting
    no new business for jiffylube... tubes will be Life of System component (from the Patent)

    [0031] The lubricant reservoir 60 may deliver fixed vapor pressure of the saturant into the environment. One embodiment uses a nanoporous material which contains significant porosity and is composed of a non-reactive material. For example, the nanoporous material may comprise carbon nanotubes 70, as illustrated in FIG. 4. Typical dimensions for each nanotube 70 are from about 0.1 to about 10 nm in diameter D and from about 1 to about 50 nm long L. As a particular example, each nanotube 70 can be about 0.7 nm in diameter and about 10 nm long. The number of nanotubes 70 provided in the reservoir 60 may be selected in order to contain a sufficient amount of lubricant for supply to the recording media during the lifetime of the system, e.g., a minimum of at least 5 or 10 years. For example, several hundred thousand or several million nanotubes may be used.
    and oh yeah so after whatever date 5 10 yrs (whatever they decided to supply the tubes for the drive will be done it appears.
    --
    actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
  11. When you have a HAMR ... by cylcyl · · Score: 4, Funny

    everything starts to look like it needs a Nano Assisted Information Lubricant

  12. Hard drive manufacturers are idiots. by zymano · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is density really the problem ?

    We need FASTER access times.

    We need multiple read/write heads.

    1. Re:Hard drive manufacturers are idiots. by Monkelectric · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Smaller = Faster. You can do one of two things to make a HD faster, spin the platters faster, or increase density so more data is passing under the heads.

      --

      Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley

  13. Re:Yay! by LWATCDR · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hardware patents == O.K.
    Software patents == evil.

    At least to the OSS community.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  14. We have a few 8-year old drives in production by wsanders · · Score: 2, Interesting

    These are 1998 vintage Sun 9G and no-name 9G ATA drives. Still running. Many more 1999-vintage 9G's out there, maybe 5% of our total. Still useful for such clusterable "applicance" applications as DNS servers. Nevertheless, when the machine dies (more likely due to a 99-cent CPU fan locking up) we just chuck the whole machine.

    Considering that the latest drives are far more reliable than those old crappy things, a finite 10-year life for a disk drive is definitely Planned Obsolescence for Filling Up Landfills. Bah!

    If they will offer a liberal trade-in allowance for recycling, then OK. Pretty much 100% of our disks are mirrored anyway.

    --
    Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
  15. Modern "Hard Disks"; by Chonine · · Score: 2, Funny
    So, first you "get perpendicular",

    Then, you "get lubricated".

  16. Flash vs. Magnetic Drive by Brit_in_the_USA · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And everyone has been complaining about the limited number of write cycles of flash memory.

    Looks like the technogies are reach equivalence by making Hard drives worse !

  17. Where does it Evaporate To? by ChronoFish · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I know I'm a little dense, but where would the lubricant evaporate to?

    I mean the HDs built today are sealed to prevent dust and moisture from coming in. wouldn't it also prevent moisture from leaving?

    If the lubricant condenses to the lid, it would seem there would be a way to capture and recycle it. You shouldn't have to run out.

    Better yet let it run in a lubricant bath - then you avoid evaporation and application of it all together.

    -CF