lubricant
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Seagate's leaking hard drives for 10x the fun
The wild and wacky frontier of hard drive technology is always full of surprising new ways to keep those drive capacities growing, and this new patent for leaking nanotube-housed lubricant onto disc platters is no exception. Apparently, a heated hard disc is capable of cramming more data into closer quarters, but the method hasn't been implemented in current drives since the heat evaporates the lubricant that allows the recording head to travel smoothly over the disc, causing a fatal disc crash. Seagate's new patent addresses the issue by storing lubricant in a special material made from millions of carbon nanotubes and embedded in the drive housing. As the disc spins, lubricant is slowly leaked out, and the disc can be kept safe for its whole lifetime. The upshot of all this is that Seagate can use the heat-assisted recording to cram several terabits per square inch into a drive -- 10 times as much data into the disc than is currently possible. We guess there'll be a bit of a wait for this to make it to market, but we greatly look forward to an educational video on the subject all the same.[Via New Scientist]
Fujitsu plans to boost drive capacity with advanced lubricants
It may not have the same "wow" factor as advances such as holographic storage or perpendicular recording (and probably doesn't have a funky flash video showing off its features), but Fujitsu has plans to increase hard drive capacity using advanced lubricants. The idea seems fairly simple: if you can reduce the space between the read/write head and the platter, you can squeeze more data into a smaller space. The problem is, there's only so close the head can get to the drive without causing damage. However, as Fujitsu sees it, new lubricants could eliminate such concerns, allowing the head to float a mere 2 nanometers above the drive, compared with 10 nm as is typical with current drives. While Fujitsu is being coy about specifics, the company boasts that the technology could allow hard drives with a capacity of 1 terabit per square inch by 2010. That would double the density offered by InPhase's holographic drives, which currently hold a record at a half-terabit per inch. So, as long as Fujitsu's lubrication solution doesn't involve, say, submerging your PC's innards in a tank of vegetable oil, we're ready for it.
