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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.'"

14 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...

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    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'...

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      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.."

  3. 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.

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    oogly boogly!
    1. 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."
  4. 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.

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  5. 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

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    1. 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

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

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  7. When you have a HAMR ... by cylcyl · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  8. 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.

  9. 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. :-)
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