Hitachi Achieves Storage Record for Disk Drives By JOHN MARKOFF April 4, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO, April 3 - Hitachi Global Storage Technologies plans to announce on Monday a record for storage density on a disk drive, attained by a novel approach that packs the tiny magnetic ones and zeros that are the basis for digital storage technology even closer together. The technology, known as perpendicular recording because the tiny magnets that represent digits are placed upright, not end to end, has been anticipated by the magnetic storage industry for more than two decades. Hitachi will report a storage density of 230 billion bits per square inch, an achievement that would make possible a desktop computer drive capable of storing a trillion bytes of information, roughly twice the capacity of today's disks. The Hitachi record surpasses a previous advance of 206 billion bits per inch announced by the Toshiba Corporation in December. Until now, the industry has relied on constant improvements in traditional "longitudinal recording" systems that employ tiny magnetized regions laid out end to end in circular tracks. A magnetic 1 is changed to a 0 when the polarity of the region is reversed. Now, however, longitudinal recording is reaching fundamental limits, and so the storage industry is preparing to make the transition to perpendicular recording. ... http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/04/technology/04hitachi.html?ex=1270267200&en=1814d77419f77c94&ei=5090 Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _______________________________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list medianews@twiar.org To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
