New HDD read heads could significantly boost capacity
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted Sep 12th 2007 2:08PM
posted Sep 12th 2007 2:08PM
Sure, your hard drive does an okay job, spinning around, hefting 200 gigabits per square inch, but wouldn't you know it, the sensors used to read all that data are reaching their physical limits. Enter the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, UK, where researchers are proposing a whole new sensor design that could result in much thinner and smaller read heads, leading to drives with data densities as high as one terabit per square inch. According to the researchers, the sensors would use less power than current read heads, and could improve the speed of the reader. In the words of lead researcher Marian Vopsaroiu, "You could read back data ten times faster... instead of one GHz, you can read at five to ten GHz." Currently, hard drives use the magneto-resistance effect to read data, needing a constant current which converts resistance to voltage. The new sensors work by using the magneto-electric effect, wherein data's magnetic field will directly generate voltage instead of resistance. The new heads will be smaller and lighter as well, using half as many layers of materials as current sensors, but there are difficulties in putting together the complex alloys of the tiny readers. Want to know all the truly techy details? Grab a cup of strong coffee and hit the read link.
It never ceases to amaze me how primitive the idea of a silicon record player is, but at the same time how effective they are at storing data. How the hell to they manufacture these things so small. Well it’s good news for the iPod Touch 2gen, maybe they will put one of these low power versions in and give us a proper storage device.
Silicon? Platters are made from aluminum or glass.
Sounds good, but stateless is the future!
stateless?
WTF?
you mean something that has no state, as in has no existence? lol
i think that you mean "solid state", as in solid state drive. or maybe, just maybe, you mean quantum mechanics computing for data storage, when we will be using "qu-bits" that have a binary state at the same time.
which has TWO states at the same time...so no i have no idea what you mean i guess
:)
Do you mean solid state?
ROFL @ stateless.
Binary would cease to exist if we had stateless. Everything would be a 0. Divide by 0's would be rampant! ROFL!
like others have said, it's probably solid state that you were referring to.
Whoops! I meant solid state.
You know,
I wish they spent more time on developing high capacity flash drives instead of these delicate needles and spinning plates.
Why must we use moving parts to store data when we don't have to anymore?
When will the day come when we all have flash based solid state drives?? Please tell me soon.
tylersmyler - You can have it now, it's just really expensive.
Technology and manufacturing is already established for disk-platter hard drives, so it would take money to switch over to something else. I'm fine with current hard drives, it's not like I drop my entire computer on the floor everyday, so flash isn't really necessary. For the laptop, however...
Why do we have RAM when we could load up with 4 GB of L2?
Cost effectiveness is tiered. I think you would be quite satisfied with a 2TB HDD, 4 GB of flash, 4 GB of ram, and 8 MB of L2. ;)
"You could read back data ten times faster... instead of one GHz, you can read at five to ten GHz."
GHz ?
/
Marian Vopsaroiu sounds like a romanian name. Sa traiesti omule!
As in billions of cycles per second, Yes.
"You could read back data ten times faster... instead of one GHz, you can read at five to ten GHz."
GHz ?
/
Marian Vopsaroiu sounds like a romanian name. Sa traiesti omule!
Sorry for the double post , i refreshed quite a couple of times and it didn't show up.
GHz
G = 10^9
Hz = cycles/s
GHz makes perfect sense here.
Ah , i see . thanks! Shadyman, you too!
Yes, indeed, Marian Vopsaroiu it's romanian man....
Jake si tu esti roman?
Different companies , Different goals.
This was supposed to be a reply to tylersmyler "I wish they spent more time on developing high capacity flash drives instead of these delicate needles and spinning plates. "
rock and roll man
whatever helps to store more pr0n...