Terabyte drive platters by 2010

Scotts Valley (CA) – Seagate will use a new technology to create the foundation for future harddrives. The company believes that its Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording will allow area densities of up to 50 terabit or more than 700 times the density of today’s harddrive platters. Seagate plans to debut HAMR in 2010 with a density of about 1 terabit.


The idea to create a recording technology which differs significantly from today’s technique is not really new. For years harddrive manufacturers emphasize that the density of harddrives, which are based on the same basic technology called Winchester, will reach its limit at some point. While especially Seagate has been warning since the mid-nineties, that the end of the 1973 introduced Winchester drive might be near, the industry was able to keep pushing the technology and its magnetic recording mechanism to new record levels each year.


“A few years ago, the density grew by about 60 percent every year and we believed the increase in density was slowing down,” said Mark Kryder, Chief Technology of Officer of Seagate. “Today we are reaching more than 100 percent growth in density every year.” Seagate’s currently largest drive, the Barracuda 7200.7, is close to 70 Gigabit per square inch. Back in 1995, Seagate believed that 10 Gigabit per square inch might not be possible with traditional Winchester drives.


http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20040323_201144.html

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