TDK also looking to boost hard drive capacity

Just try naming a major player in the hard drive biz not touting some sort of stupendous breakthrough to boost HDD capacity, and you're likely to come up fairly empty. Nevertheless, TDK is hopping on the ever-growing bandwagon, as it has reportedly "developed the technology to more than double the data storage capacity of hard-disk drives compared with the most advanced products now available by modifying the design of magnetic heads and disks." Notably, we've heard of similar processes before, but TDK is suggesting that its method can offer up the capability to "read and write 602-gigabits of data per square inch" while producing drives up to 3TB in size. Best of all, this all seems to be a bit beyond the drawing board, as the outfit hopes to mass produce the heads sometime in 2010. [Warning: read link requires subscription]

[GoR @ Oct 2nd 2007 9:43AM]

By 2010 ... 128gb SSDs will be standard issue on midline laptops.. HDDs are on their way out in laptops.

[DickHardknocks @ Oct 2nd 2007 9:51AM]

moving parts are a thing of the past. Switch to reliable NAND drives or Holographic storage.

[Mark @ Oct 2nd 2007 10:06AM]

I don't think it's unrealistic to expect hard drive sizes to triple in 2-3 years. They've basically been doing that since they've been created.

[Typhoid Mary @ Oct 2nd 2007 10:08AM]

Unfortunately the price per gig is never justified with these new larger drives.

[Drew Fink @ Oct 2nd 2007 12:01PM]

Yeah the highest capacity drives never have the best GiB/$ ratios. But larger capacity drives always lead to lower prices in the mainstream. Right now the HDD capacity/price sweet spot is at 320 GiB or 500 GiB. In 12-18 months it could be at the 750 GiB or 1 TiB (.909TB) level. That would be as a result of 2TiB or 3 TiB drives on the market and decreased costs for lower data densities.

So in conclusion: Typhoid Mary, you comment was asinine

[Wwhat @ Oct 2nd 2007 1:05PM]

I'd not even bet TDK still being around in 2010, let alone them developing some new technology for HD's, which as pointed out might not even be that wanted in 2010.

[grey eminence @ Oct 3rd 2007 12:47AM]

Holographics will start at petabytes and go up from there.

http://colossalstorage.net