Seagate claims world record for magnetic recording density
While researchers in academia have the luxury of playing around with exotic technologies like nano-clusters, shape-shifting lasers, and nanomagnetic vortices, the engineers at Seagate know that they actually have to profit off of their research, so for now they're sticking with traditional magnetic recording techniques in order to push the limits of hard drive capacity with new and exciting storage densities. Using now-standard perpendicular recording heads and media manufactured with current production techniques, the company recently demoed drives with a record-breaking 421Gb/in² data density, which should allow for 500GB 2.5-inch notebook drives, 2.5TB 3.5-inch desktop drives, and 1-inch to 1.8-inch consumer electronics drives that can store between 40GB and an impressive 275GB, starting in 2009. Looking beyond perpendicular recording, Seagate researchers say that the still nascent Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) and bit patterned media techniques should eventually allow mind-boggling densities of up to 50Tb/in², which is surely more space than anyone could possibly need, ever. (We know that last part's actually untrue, but we just included it so that future generations perusing our archives can have a good, hindsight-enabled laugh at our naïveté).
Filed under: Storage
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dan @ Sep 17th 2006 2:25PM
2009 !?!?! But I need it NOW !
Rick @ Sep 17th 2006 2:34PM
2 or 3 of them in a RAID could almost hold all my porn, uhh no I meant my research.
apoc @ Sep 17th 2006 2:35PM
640 KB ought to be enough for anybody!
jacob @ Sep 17th 2006 2:58PM
Yeah i heard that windows 2034 will need at least 15 terabytes of free hard drive space, else they won't be able to fit all those new holographic eye candy in it (as well as the typical microsoft bloat)
xBox killer @ Sep 17th 2006 3:12PM
"50Tb/in², which is surely more space than anyone could possibly need, ever."
Never say never! :)
ripismoney @ Sep 17th 2006 3:28PM
Once upon a time, I had a computer with dual 100 mb hard drives: I thought I would never fill them up... I was wrong. We'll find some new kinds of digital media to fill those drives right up. And the next generation can look at our weak 500 GB hard drives and laugh.
Kenny @ Sep 17th 2006 4:02PM
#3, please tell me you were joking . . . seriously, PLEASE!. My music ALONE is almost 2 GB, photos are about 1.5 GB, and then there are actually programs . . . I'm just going to assume you were joking as I'm sure you were.
shmengie @ Sep 17th 2006 4:10PM
kenny: yes apoc was joking. he was quoting bill gates from about 20 years ago.
Karl Wagner @ Sep 17th 2006 4:15PM
That should make for one kick-ass iPod.
I remember when I was excited about my 750MB hard drive almost having a gigabyte. 2.5TB on a single drive? That makes 10TB on a fully-equipped mac pro. See? This is why SATAIO should hurry up and get SATA600 finalised! I'm hungry for a bus that could actually handle data transfer rates with drives of that kind of density.
-K
Dave @ Sep 17th 2006 4:40PM
Kenny, 2GB music? In your mobile phone or mp3 player maybe? 1,5GB photos? Yes but in my camera!
We are talking here about computers ;) 1TB (1024GB) is nothing much for todays PCs.
sidewinder @ Sep 17th 2006 4:53PM
shmengie: kenny: yes apoc was joking. he was misquoting bill gates from about 20 years ago.
Fixed that for you
Marc Tew @ Sep 17th 2006 5:04PM
The problem with this technology, is companies release it in stages. so yeh they can make 2.5 tb hdd's or whatever, yet they can PROBABLY make 10tb drives, they just want people to buy the constant new releases, so they will bring out 2.5's then 5's then 7.5's then 10's and we'll end up buying them all.
resource @ Sep 17th 2006 5:43PM
You know you're a tech nerd when you've watched your alma mater blow out Notre Dame and this news is what made you happiest this weekend.
Seriously, I need 500 gigs in my laptop yesterday.
Erk @ Sep 17th 2006 6:24PM
@Kenny,
Wow, sarcasm really escapes you doesn't it? lol
Nagrom @ Sep 17th 2006 6:33PM
But i need/want NOW NOW.... I dont have the patience to wait mate.
distantguy @ Sep 17th 2006 7:04PM
Except that the Bill Gates "quote" is a myth.
http://tafkac.org/celebrities/bill.gates/gates_memory.html
h4x0r @ Sep 17th 2006 7:08PM
this is godly
morf @ Sep 17th 2006 7:57PM
Stop! HAMR time!
yubastard @ Sep 17th 2006 8:02PM
that last line was hilarious!
Matt E. @ Sep 17th 2006 10:31PM
Its funny how people can rewrite their history 20 years later. That "quote" was typical of the arrogance of M$ at the time.
I'll also note that most apps took far less than 640KB to run at the time the "quote" was made. It was a DOS world. Windows 1.0 wasn't even a thought in Gates' mind. It's probably true.
Aaron @ Sep 17th 2006 11:26PM
Woooow, awesome. This put a big, stupid smile on my face. You KNOW it's good news when that happens. This is exciting. And yeah, like everyone else, I could have used it yesterday.
heatguy O @ Sep 17th 2006 11:59PM
i sense heat problems in the gears with this design.
needs more work.
187 - John Doe @ Sep 18th 2006 6:25AM
With all my HDDs and USB, and CDs/DVDs I actually fill up over 1TB of space. Sad thing is... I have no more space, so I could really use one of those. I mean my archive database is huge enough on its own...
eage @ Sep 18th 2006 1:59PM
apoc - 640 KB ought to be enough for anybody!
he was talking about memory, that quote (if he did actually say it) has nothing to do with harddrives.
Spoonman @ Sep 18th 2006 5:25PM
Wow, more space. Whooptie-friggin'-doo! Lots of drive space is nice, but do most people need it? You know what people really need? Speed. A 500GB 2.5" drive in my notebook is not something I need if it's still only 5400 or slower in the RPMs. Here's a thought: we've got drives that are big enough now, can we have ones that are faster AND don't chew through tons of electrons to accomplish it?
And, yes, we're all waiting for the citation of Bill actually saying that....
shaninho @ Sep 18th 2006 10:08PM
well if it's a seagate drive, it will probably fail on you anyway.