Sarmad,
It's the same IBM that keeps new disk drive innovations flowing, even if they have problems executing. A 400 gb desktop drive anyone?
IBM's new disk design will let hard drives hold more data
5/21/2001 12:15:00 AM
SAN JOSE, California, May 21, 2001 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- The days of 400-gigabyte hard
drives in desktop PCs may be closer than most computer users realize.
IBM Corp. says it has cracked a barrier in disk drive design - a breakthrough that would eventually
quadruple the data density of a hard disk and give consumers improved options to store their growing
amounts of digital data.
The Armonk, New York-based company is expected to announce Monday that it is the first company
to mass-produce computer hard disk drives using a new type of magnetic coating, achieving levels of
data density previously thought to be impossible.
It's a three-atom thick layer of ruthenium, a precious metal similar to platinum, sandwiched between
two magnetic layers. Scientists at IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose have dubbed the
layer "pixie dust."
Technically, the coating is called "antiferromagnetically-coupled (AFC) media." It addresses the
problem of a so-called "superparamagnetic effect," in which data gets lost when the magnetic regions
of a disk get too small.
With the new design, hard-disk drives will be able to hold up to 100 billion bits of data per square inch
(6.5 square centimeters). Current methods would have maxed out at 20 to 40 billion bits of data per
square inch (6.5 square centimeters), which is close to the density of disk drives in use today, IBM
said.
For consumers who are starting to rack up volumes of digital data from music, photographs and video,
the new development would mean that in two years, they could have desktop computers with 400
gigabytes of storage space, IBM said.
Today, many PCs come with hard drives ranging from 10 gigabytes to 20 gigabytes. One with 40
gigabytes is on the high end.
Also, IBM said hard drives for computer notebooks would be able to hold as much as 200 gigabytes of
data, or the equivalent of 42 DVDs or more than 300 CDs. And with IBM's one-inch Microdrive,
handheld devices would be able to hold 6 gigabytes or 13 hours of MPEG-4 compressed digital video.
The new technology may also accelerate an industry trend toward smaller disk drives that consume
less energy, or lead to more data-intensive applications, IBM said.
In the past decade, the data density for magnetic hard drives has doubled every 18 months. Since
1997, it's been doubling every year. Until the "pixie dust" coating breakthrough, scientists said they
faced a design barrier they thought would halt progress.
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By MAY WONG AP Technology Writer
Copyright 2001 Associated Press, All rights reserved
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