Carbon ring storage promises 1,000 times higher memory density

Terrifying news, kids: we're growing seriously close to maxing out the density limits of present magnetic memory technology as it becomes increasingly difficult to shrink the necessary grains used in the process. Thankfully, there's a team of German scientists devoted to doing more than standing around and watching the inevitable happen. Cobalt, the element responsible for keeping your precious data intact, typically requires a 50,000 atom fleet for each grain, but boffins from Dresden have found a way to shrink that to a measly flotilla of 50. Without trampling you with technological details, attaching carbon rings to the cobalt reproduces the requisite hexagonal close packed structure, which leads to reduced space requirements. Should this technique prove viable, we can expect yet another race among hard drive makers as they strive to make each other's most capacious drives look downright diminutive. Hit the read link for all the grisly details.

[Via Graphene-Info]

[Jamie M @ Jul 6th 2009 8:37AM]

Don't care. Want solid state.

[kylehase @ Jul 6th 2009 8:47AM]

FTA "...improve the density of magnetic data storage, by around a thousand times. The data will also last much longer than is possible today."

In other words ~2 petabytes of highly reliable data in a 3.5" case. This has a lot to offer over SSDs for many applications.

[htowngator @ Jul 6th 2009 9:14AM]

SSD's are still going to be more expensive and less cost effective than what these drives could possibly introduce.

[Samboini @ Jul 6th 2009 1:20PM]

I'm more concerned with read/write speeds; hard-drives are cheap enough and large enough for me as they stand (although nothing wrong with more pr0n space, right?).

[loosely_coupled @ Jul 8th 2009 2:35PM]

It's not as if this technology will be out commercially anytime soon. SSDs are just getting started, and there are about a dozen next-generation potential replacements to NAND Flash in the laboratory that are far faster, far denser, etc.

[Templarian @ Jul 6th 2009 8:41AM]

The future looks amazing. Now we just need to put all this future tech together and make something really amazing. I'd like to pair this up with a nice quantum CPU.

[snakegriffin @ Jul 6th 2009 8:43AM]

What exactly are you going to do with that quantum CPU? Do you even know what one does with a quantum computer?

[Templarian @ Jul 6th 2009 8:46AM]

@snakegriffin, faster servers for everything?

(or that project to find the perfect pie... mmm pie)

[andyupchurch @ Jul 6th 2009 8:48AM]

Download porn??

[snakegriffin @ Jul 6th 2009 8:56AM]

Quantum tech isn't something that's going to be used for everyday computing... it's to be used for very specific tasks. In other words, mainly in a coprocessor capability. The algorithms for quantum computation are quite different than the ones used for classical computing.

[GB @ Jul 6th 2009 9:49AM]

Hmm... I wanted to post something like: Comment about Pron in 3...2...1...
I guess I was a bit late for that, after andyupchurch already mentioned it.. It's kinda sad.

[KarlW @ Jul 6th 2009 11:28AM]

@snakegriffin

That's probably what they said about GPUs

[loosely_coupled @ Jul 8th 2009 2:38PM]

@Karl W

No, that's no how it works. Quantum computers offer no advantages for traditional data processing.

[Dayne @ Jul 6th 2009 8:53AM]

And now I remember why I hated chemistry and PHYS 241.

[KarlW @ Jul 6th 2009 11:29AM]

Because you hate the idea of a petabyte hard disk?

[Dayne @ Jul 6th 2009 1:09PM]

Because I hated molecular geometry, current flow diagrams, ionization energy and electron affinity of particles.

[TimmyRaa @ Jul 6th 2009 8:56AM]

Carbon rings, of course. You can achieve anything if it has carbon, ring, nano, or tube in the name.

[mocax @ Jul 6th 2009 8:59AM]

what about onion rings?

i love onion rings...

[TimmyRaa @ Jul 6th 2009 9:01AM]

Burgers and hot dogs, that's what you can do with onion rings.

Damn I'm hungry.

[wako @ Jul 6th 2009 10:38AM]

and all of them are carcinogens!

[KarlW @ Jul 6th 2009 11:31AM]

I just fixed the Engadget comment system using onion tubes.

Nobel prize, here I come!

[chris2 @ Jul 6th 2009 9:14AM]

"grizzly details"? there are bears involved?

[htowngator @ Jul 6th 2009 9:16AM]

I see what you did there.

[Wwhat @ Jul 6th 2009 9:26AM]

Do you really see it? Here's what the oxford dictionary says on the subject:

Grisly and grizzly are often confused. Grisly means 'causing horror or revulsion', as in grisly crimes, whereas grizzly is chiefly used with reference to a kind of large American bear, and can also mean 'grey or grey-haired'.

[Wwhat @ Jul 6th 2009 9:25AM]

Cool I can use this with the promised batteries that last 1000 times longer and have 10000 times the capacity.

[ED @ Jul 6th 2009 6:49PM]

...to play DNF.

[ROBERTO @ Jul 6th 2009 9:26AM]

But if you use Carbon, won't the elitist hippies get pissed and charge you for Carbon credits?

[Scuba Steve @ Jul 6th 2009 4:24PM]

Ill say. Carbon, Ahhh global warming... stupid hippies!!!

[bartoron @ Jul 6th 2009 9:32AM]

Benzene? Does this mean that computers will smell from now on?

[Vladislav Savov @ Jul 6th 2009 9:35AM]

Wwhat, thank you for that accurate bit of information.

[OneLove @ Jul 6th 2009 9:41AM]

how much and will it give me cancer?

[dcnoren @ Jul 6th 2009 9:56AM]

Only in the state of California.

[slyd3z @ Jul 6th 2009 10:01AM]

Given the rapid rate of growth of OS and software bloat, this couldn't have happened soon enough.

[Dayne @ Jul 6th 2009 10:06AM]

Indeed, imagine how much more crapware we could be exposed to.

[Magallanes @ Jul 6th 2009 11:31AM]

hey c'mon, Vista wasn't so bloated.
:-P

[zildorian @ Jul 6th 2009 12:20PM]

I for one welcome our new carbon benzene ring nano-cobalt carcinogen based quivering purple tube overlords... and crapware isn't bloat. It's added undocumented features designed to drive you to switch to Linux.

[shezmu @ Jul 6th 2009 12:52PM]

Just when you thought the industry was finally going to ditch the hard drive. :(

[hulse_kevin @ Jul 6th 2009 3:15PM]

Gimme an Archos with one of these drives and the horsepower to be able to play anything from my MythVideo jukebox without modification.

[Andrew @ Jul 8th 2009 6:56PM]

"Density" is a tricky word. By shrinking the linear dimension of each "grain" by a factor of 10, the volumetric density improves by a factor of 1000. However, with hard drives, it's the /surface/ density that's important, thus the capacity would only improve by a factor of 100. Still a significant increase, but not as big.

Imagine a square platter that is 1 meter on each side. If your "grains" are cubes with sides of 10 cm, then you can fit 100 grains on the platter. If your grains are 1 cm, you can fit 10,000 on the platter. The height (depth) of the grains doesn't matter, it's how many you can pack onto the surface.