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HGST develops helium-filled, high-capacity hard drives: no, they won't float away
With certain exceptions, talk of advanced hard drive technology regularly has a tough time escaping research labs. Western Digital's HGST is promising a much more tangible project that could boost data capacities by a wide margin. By filling the gaps between drive platters with less buffeting-prone helium instead of air, HGST can safely fit as many as seven platters in a typical, 3.5-inch desktop hard drive instead of the current five. Going with the lower density gas creates a raft of side benefits, such as fitting more data on a single platter along with reducing the drag that both slows down and heats up the disk. We'll have to wait until 2013 to see shipping helium-filled drives in our PCs; given the slightly exotic nature of the technique, though, we wouldn't count on HGST or Western Digital handing out drives for free like balloons at a birthday party.
Seagate copies Samsung's notes, re-breaks areal-density barrier with 1TB HDD platters
What better way for Seagate to celebrate its $1.375 billion dollar purchase of Samsung's HDD division than to re-introduce the old firm's breakthrough? Seagate took the Samsung's 1TB platter prototypes and packed them into a real hard drive, bringing the new technology to market for the first time. These new drives will boast an areal-density of 625 gigabits (78.13GB) per square inch, scoring 1TB platters for the outfit's next generation of hard disks. Unfortunately, Seagate won't be cramming four of those 1TB plates into a single hard drive as Samsung originally planned, instead opting to debut the technology in a 3TB external drive under their GoFlex brand. No official specs this time around, but when the turkey was on Samsung's platter, it spun at 5,400 RPM with a 32MB cache and SATA 6Gbps compatibility.
Samsung HDD manages 1TB per platter, areal-density enthusiasts rejoice
Solid state drives are the geek storage of choice, what with their quiet nature, blazing fast speed, and stunning good looks. However, the limited capacity and sky-high price of SSDs keeps many of us buying traditional disk-based storage solutions -- which is just fine considering Samsung keeps finding ways to fit more bits and bytes on every drive. Last year, Sammy's EcoGreen F4EG squeezed 2TB onto a 3-platter drive (or 667GB per platter), and now the company's primed to release a new series of Spinpoint drives with even greater areal density at a time and price that remains TBD. Whenever they do get here, the new HDDs promise to deliver up to 1TB per platter spinning at 5,400RPM -- meaning 4TB desktop drives and a terabyte of storage (courtesy of two 500GB platters) in standard-sized laptop HDDs. The 3.5-inch version packs a 32MB cache and SATA 6Gbps compatibility, while the 2.5-inch variety has an 8MB cache and a 3 Gb/s SATA interface. Knowing all that, only one question remains: could areal-density enthusiasts be the new pixel-density enthusiasts?
Toshiba demonstrates successful BPR HDD, is 2.5Tb per inch a platter's last stand?
We'll be honest: we thought SSDs would suck down most of platter-based storage's milkshake by now -- that magnetic disks would follow tapes into obscurity. Alas, SSDs are still niche items, and Toshiba is doing all it can to keep them that way, demonstrating a successful prototype of a new storage technique called bit-pattern recording that currently generates a storage density of 2.5Tb per square inch. That's about five times more dense than the company's current offerings, achieved by placing individual bits onto lithographed "islands" of magnetic material. This protects the charge of the individual bits and allows those sectors to be much smaller. Toshiba suggests we won't see these until 2013, but now we're left wondering what's next... can engineers stuff even more bits onto these things?
New HDD writing methods could boost platter densities by 5x or more
Just when we think that platter-based storage is on its way out it keeps on coming back with a vengeance. A few years ago it was perpendicular recording boosting storage densities by a few orders of magnitude, now it's a pair of new techniques that could push things much further. Your average disk today can manage a couple-hundred GB per square inch while still delivering reliable writes, but if all goes to plan the write methods called bit-patterned recording (BPR) and thermally-assisted recording (TAR) could raise that to 1TB per inch initially and upwards of 10TB per inch down the road. BPR relies on segregating the disk sectors with lithographed "islands" while TAR relies on heating and cooling techniques that preserve the data in nearby sectors. When these Wonder Twins combine, disk sectors can be as small as 15nm in diameter and write speeds can hit 250Mb/sec. Yes, that's megabits, so while you'll be able to store a lot more data than on conventional platters, you won't be able to do so any more quickly than now.
Toshiba's latest HDDs are automotive-grade, dashboard-bound
We'd like to think that platters are a dying breed; that SSD-based mass storage will rule all our computing devices thanks to its increased durability, performance, and efficiency. Some folks are just stuck on platters, though, including Toshiba, which is introducing a new line of disks intended for in-car infotainment systems. The two current models come in 100 or 200GB capacities and, while they won't win any awards for their 4,200RPM rotational speeds, they will operate at a temperature range of -30 to 85 degrees celsius (that's -22 to 185F) while offering vibration resistance of up to 2Gs and operational shock survivability of up to 300Gs. If you can avoid firing your minivan out of a gauss rifle in Minnesota in February this could be the drive for you.
Xmas tree made entirely of SCSI drives, offers lower CPU load than IDE alternatives
Ever found yourself with 70 decommissioned SCSI hard drives and an awful, awful lot of free time on your hands? If so, and you're bursting with holiday spirit, perhaps you'll choose to do the same as an apparent sys admin who goes by the name of Trigger. He took those drives from RAID arrays destined for the scrap heap and, rather than perform the DoD wipe that would have otherwise been required, chose to build this lovely -- if somewhat askew (see below) -- "tree" from the bevy of mirrored platters within. In fact the geeky holiday decor was made entirely from the bits and pieces within the drives, the lone exception being a nut purchased for $.39, making it a far more affordable project than yesterday's OLED tree. It's impressive to behold, but given the amount of personal data within, we think it's probably more likely to spread lawsuits than cheer this season.
Fujitsu achieves another storage milestone using patterned media technology
Although it seemed that Seagate was comfortably at the forefront of magnetic recording developments, Fujitsu is hoping that its latest "breakthrough" will add a little friction to the areal density competition. Using patterned media technology, the firm "was able to achieve a one-dimensional array nanohole pattern with an unprecedented 25 nanometer pitch," which essentially means that recording one-terabit per square inch onto HDDs of the future is now realizable. Additionally, the company also revealed a new development "involving perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) read / write operation on random patterned media," which utilizes the soft underlayer (SUL) as the PMR media. As expected, the presenters weren't as forthcoming about when we'd actually see these achievements make a difference in our laptops, servers, and other HDD-equipped devices, but the sooner the better, okay Fujitsu?
