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Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stoctrash who wrote (45717)	10/4/1999 11:48:00 AM
From: BillyG	Respond to of 50808

3 hours and 15 minutes of MPEG-2 compressed video per square inch....... news.cnet.com IBM aims for data storage record By Erich Luening Staff Writer, CNET News.com October 4, 1999, 7:35 a.m. PT IBM said today it set a new computer data storage standard of 35.3 billion data bits per square inch on a hard disk--a 75 percent increase over the 20-billion-bit milestone the company achieved less than five months ago. At 35-gigabit-per-square-inch density, each square inch of disk space could hold 3 hours and 15 minutes of MPEG-2 compressed video, about the equivalent of two full-length movies; nearly 77 hours of MP3 compressed audio; or the text from 2,187,5000 sheets of double-spaced typewritten paper, which would make a stack 730 feet high, or laid end-to-end, would stretch some 380 miles, which is farther than the distance from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Data is written onto the new magnetic "media"--the metal-alloy materials that coat the hard-disk platters, which is where the data is stored as a pattern of bits. The bits are tiny oblong regions magnetized in either of two opposite directions. If bits can be made smaller, more data can be stored within the same disk area. But if the bits become too small, they may not be able to maintain their magnetic orientations for the many years required for commercial products. Driving IBM's latest achievement is the new magnetic media. The magnetic material of the media provides product-quality stability, not the data-robbing fluctuations that had been feared at such high densities, the company said. Because fewer disks are needed to achieve more data storage, increasing data density leads to disk drives that are lighter and consume less energy --important factors in portable computers--and tend to be more reliable. The new test bits were as stable as those in products today. The new proprietary disk media can be manufactured commercially using existing production equipment. Lab results also suggest that even smaller bits on this media will continue to be stable, enabling a clear path to even higher densities in the future, the company said. "This demonstration underscores both IBM's technology leadership in the magnetic hard-disk-drive industry, and also our confidence that we will continue to be able to provide our customers with the increasing data-storage capacities they need to take full advantage of new data-intensive applications in e business and deep computing," John Best, vice president of technology for IBM's storage systems division, said in a statement.