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Toshiba Boosts Hard Drive Density By 50%

Posted by kdawson on from the now-how-we-gonna-back-that-sucker-up dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Toshiba has unveiled a ground-breaking technology that boosts recording density by 50% on an 80-GB, 1.8", single-platter drive. Using what it calls Discrete Track Recording technology, Toshiba was able to pack 120 GB storage on a single 1.8" platter. The new development will hugely benefit media player, UMPC, and ultra-portable laptop segments where 1.8" drives with maximum possible capacity are in great demand."

26 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. whenever they talk about hard drive densitiy by weirdcrashingnoises · · Score: 4, Funny

    i think of this...

    George McFly: Lorraine, my density has bought me to you.
    Lorraine Baines: What?
    George McFly: Oh, what I meant to say was...
    Lorraine Baines: Wait a minute, don't I know you from somewhere?
    George McFly: Yes. Yes. I'm George, George McFly. I'm your density.

    --
    sigs... don't talk to me about sigs....
  2. Re:well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    density & capacity aside, i am wondering why don't we have drives with multiple independent R/W heads?

  3. Damnit... by feepness · · Score: 4, Informative

    Now I have to wait longer for SSD to become the clear winner.

    1. Re:Damnit... by Kjella · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Oh how terrible if SSD has to actually beat the competition, that it didn't just lie down and die when SSDs announced they were taking over. As bulk storage, SSDs are still damn expensive. Think either-or, say an 8GB SSD soldered on the mobo (1.8" form factor is way overkill) with OS/apps and 120GB bulk HDD space on a 1.8" HDD. Sounds good to me, at least until 100GB+ SSDs are cheap and that may take a looong while.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    2. Re:Damnit... by mcrbids · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Now I have to wait longer for SSD to become the clear winner.

      I've been waiting for well over 10 years. When I first thought that SSD was going to "win", 1 GB drive was huge. Now, it's $9, plugs into a thumb-sized slot in 5 seconds, and is available at the local Wal-Mart. The mechanical drives sport 750 GB for $200 that the 1 GB drive used to cost. (and that doesn't even account for inflation!)

      I have a digital camera with video and sound. It's up to 800x600, and with my 2 GB flash cartridge, I get up to about an 30 minutes of video. It's very small, lightweight, and runs on a couple AA rechargables.

      Still think that SSD hasn't "won"?

      --
      I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
    3. Re:Damnit... by timmarhy · · Score: 2, Insightful
      you were always going to have to wait a long time.

      yes spinning disks suck, but 100x the cost sucks even MORE. SSD is up there with those holographic drives we keep hearing about that are only 2 years away...

      --
      If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
    4. Re:Damnit... by DrMrLordX · · Score: 3, Informative

      Just keep your eye on MTRON. They're pushing a lot of SSD harddrives out on the market, albeit at astronomical prices. Still, the performance on their drives is fantastic.

    5. Re:Damnit... by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 2, Informative

      So what? It's not as if the advancements in hard drives are now unexpected. They are going to be pushed as hard as possible as long as they are competitive. SSDs are getting larger too, and flash chips are continually dropping in price. I really don't expect a "clear" winner for some time. What is a clear winner in one circumstance is a clear loser in another. I use a couple machines that are running on flash drives, one is a 512MB CF drive, but that's because vibration is a problem because it's running a CNC machine, spinning heavy duty motors, resonance, cutting metal and all, otherwise it ate a drive every three years. I call that a clear winner in that case. For other computers that I use to acquire and store media, flash would be a clear loser, it's far cheaper to mirror and back up than it is to go SSD. I expect that flash drives will displace hard drives more and more.

    6. Re:Damnit... by timeOday · · Score: 4, Insightful
      No, I think SSD really will win. Over the past 5 years, solid state has doubled in capacity over and over again, while hard drive capacity growth has slowed. The net effect has been tremendous gains for flash memory.

      The other trend I see is satisfaction with hard drive sizes. Notice how the blurb for this article only mentioned 1.8" platters, as if capacity was only lacking in small devices? For most people, requirements for storage simply aren't growing. Even Vista is insignificant on a cheap, commonplace 500 GB drive. My PVR PC still has a 160 GB drive, I just can't be bothered to upgrade.

      With near 0 access latency and higher reliability, flash doesn't have to beat winchester drives in $$/GB to win. It just has to be big enough and cheap enough, and it's getting there.

    7. Re:Damnit... by mcrbids · · Score: 2, Insightful


      I wouldn't bet on that. At some point, no moving parts has to beat moving parts.

      Yeah, like how the Peltier cooler has replaced mechanical refrigerators. Or the thermocouple has replaced mechanical generators and steam in nuclear power plants.

      Oh, wait....

      --
      I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
    8. Re:Damnit... by Ramble · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Possibly they'll win one day but at the moment (and this will be true for some time) there is no clear advantage to SSDs. Rubbish storage capacity, similar throughput and expensive as hell. Latency is one of the only things they have going for them.

      --
      "Oh boy"
    9. Re:Damnit... by phillips321 · · Score: 2, Informative

      http://www.mtron.net/eng/index.asp# - Just in case someone needs to investigate, looks pretty good to me

    10. Re:Damnit... by owlstead · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Throughput is lower, but SSD's already provide faster startup times than HDD's. Latency, reliability, size, low power use, noise are all clear advantages for SSD's over hard drive technology. If prices come down a bit (or rather, a lot) for SSD's when they become more regular, HDD's will only have size and size per dollar left as advantages.

      For my OS, flash seems a very logical choice. Price and some uncertainties about the flash currently on the market have withhold me from buying it so far, but this will probably end pretty soon. For my video and MP3 collection, well, HDD's and (original) DVD's are the only logical choice for me.

  4. Technological anachronism by Circlotron · · Score: 3, Funny

    Imagine if the humble telephone dial had received this much effort and technology. What would THEY be like now?

    1. Re:Technological anachronism by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 2, Funny

      Good question. Its been my longstanding dream of building a cell phone with a phone dial and no screen. It would be an old school handset with a dial, and a hook built into the belt holster. Maybe the dial should be on the holster as well. And I would tell everyone my "phone was off the hook", sometimes as a joke, sometimes as an excuse for not picking up the phone. Although, I really don't know how many people would get the joke.

      --
      Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
  5. another infomercial by semiotec · · Score: 3, Informative

    1. Samsung had announced their 120 Gb 4200 rpm 1.8" drive a couple of weeks earlier (http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/i ndex.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070820005213 &newsLang=en), but there's no sign of it available yet.

    2. The Toshiba 120 Gb drive, according to PC Watch Impress (http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2007/0906/tosh iba.htm) is 3600 rpm with CE-ATA interface, not really suitable for notebooks, even ultra-portable ones.

    I'd guess the new iPod Classic uses the Toshiba drive, since it supposedly uses even less power compared to their previous 1.8" drives. But if this is the case, it means I can't just rip it out of the iPod to plug into my laptop, since the interface doesn't appear to be compatible with their previous 1.8" drives.

    However, I still hope that at least one of these make it to the retail market. It would be nice to be able to double my current 80 Gb drive.

    1. Re:another infomercial by semiotec · · Score: 2, Informative

      "You don't put 1.8" drives in notebooks, you put them in iPods. 2.5" drives go into notebooks."

      Thanks, I'd be sure to pass that onto Toshiba (R200, R400), Sony (TZ series), HP (nc2400, nc2510) and Dell (D420/430) and tell them that they really should listen to some AC on Slashdot.

      "some sort of crazy ultraportable"

      and that also means they weight 2 lb instead of 5 lb. The last three of my laptops have all been ultraportables, and all together they still weight less than 15" notebooks out there.

  6. I found the patent info on this... by dada21 · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...Toshiba's patent just says to take out the MFM hard disc controller, and replace it with their new RLL controller. I tested this myself and got my 10MB drive to a full 15MB without a single problem!

    1. Re:I found the patent info on this... by Headcase88 · · Score: 4, Funny

      dada21 casts JOKE at Anonymous Coward
      Woosh! The attack misses.
      Headcase88 taunts from afar
      Headcase88 equips flame shield

      --
      "When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
  7. Re:Its still a toshiba by v1 · · Score: 2, Funny

    And yes, I am a seagate/maxtor fanboy. I still have a 1.6gb maxtor from 95 that works fine.

    I was a seagate fanboy until 3 months ago. Lets just say that evening I could hear the (2 month old) 500gb seagate in my basement before I put the key in the door. (sounded like a circular saw)

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  8. Better information on this by eclectro · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is an article about discrete track recording that explains it pretty well. Using materials with different magnetic properties they are able to map channels onto the platter (hence the 'discrete'). Presumably this might would be cumbersome to manufacture for larger discs, but less so with smaller disks.

    --
    Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
    1. Re:Better information on this by Anpheus · · Score: 2, Funny

      God, I'd really like it if they'd come out with discreet track recording technology so I can hide all my porn!

      (But at 120GB, that's not nearly enough space!)

  9. Re:Speed? by timmarhy · · Score: 2, Informative

    It will be faster. seek time is a major factor in hard drive speed.

    --
    If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
  10. Re:Its still a toshiba by nmb3000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Your hard drive was likely still under warranty through Seagate -- did you look into it and see if they would replace it for you?

    I imagine that is the least of his worries. When I lost an 80GB drive a couple years ago I would have gladly paid several times the price of a new one if I could only have gotten the contents back. While a free replacement drive might lessen the blow somewhat--as geeky as it might sound--losing a hard drive with gigabytes of content you really care about is a gut-wrenching experience. Everything from my high school days (homework, projects, work, programming, games, music... everything) was gone in one fail swoop.

    The only thing similar to it is having your house burn down. Sure insurance should cover it all, but there is no way to get back what was really lost. I suppose if nothing else it taught me the importance of hardware redundancy, though it seemed a high price to pay at the time.

    --
    "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
    /)
  11. Re:well... by toddestan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would think that it would be cheaper and easier just to take two standard drives and RAID them for the same effect rather than to build some two servo monstrousity.

  12. Re:Its still a toshiba by edwardpickman · · Score: 2, Funny
    I was a seagate fanboy until 3 months ago. Lets just say that evening I could hear the (2 month old) 500gb seagate in my basement before I put the key in the door. (sounded like a circular saw)

    It was just happy to see you and welcoming you home.