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'Racetrack' Memory Could Replace Hard Drives?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the sure-why-not dept.

Galactic_grub writes "An experimental new type of memory that uses nanosecond pulses of electric current to push magnetic regions along a wire could dramatically boost the capacity, speed and reliability of storage devices. Magnetic domains are moved along a wire by pulses of polarized current, and their location is read by fixed sensors arranged along the wire. Previous experiments have been disappointing, but now researchers have found that super-fast pulses of electricity prevent the domains from being obstructed by imperfections in the crystal."

3 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Anything by Silver+Sloth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Anything would be better than the current way my hard drive works You mean a technology that is
    • cheap
    • reliable - OK, hard drive errors do exist but I wish my car, for example, was as reliable
    • standardized - OK, there are a number of standards but not that many
    Yes, in the long term I don't see the hard drive as the best method of data storage but the altenatives have a long way to go before they replace it.
    --
    init 11 - for when you need that edge.
  2. Re:I've seen it in fibre before... by simm1701 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Sounds like an idea for a slashdot poll:

    Which is your favorite vapourware "hard disk replacement"? :)

    --
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  3. Hard disks vs Cars by giafly · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ok hard drive errors do exist but I wish my car, for example, was as reliable
    If I drove a car that was as as unreliable as my hard drives, I'd be dead. Three crashes in the last 4 years, all contents lost.
    --
    Reduce, reuse, cycle