Seagate deploys perpendicular storage drives

[Dave]

Link

With consumers storing more and more digital photos, music and video, Seagate Technology said Monday it has introduced a line of hard drives using pioneering space-saving technology.
The technology shift marks a major change in the manufacture of disk drives since they were introduced 50 years ago. It involves, for the first time, standing up bits of data vertically instead of lying them down, so that more bits than before can be squeezed into a tiny space.
As a practical matter, the change in technology means that laptops and other gadgets will now be able to hold ever-increasing amounts of data, overcoming fears that they could soon hit maximum capacity. And it comes as consumers are downloading popular video clips and entire seasons of television shows onto their laptops.
"People want to watch video on their notebook PCs, and video is very storage-intensive," said John Rydning, an analyst with technology research firm IDC. "By having larger capacities, people can load up their movies and put their DVDs on their notebook PC ... so they can take it with them."
Seagate of Scotts Valley is one of the first to make the switch to the new technology and said it plans to convert its entire line by the end of the year. It has begun to ship the Momentus 5400.3 hard drive, with up to 160 gigabytes of capacity, which should make its way into high-end laptops in the next few months.
Although it is not a technological breakthrough, Seagate and others had not yet taken advantage of this new storage technique because of high costs, analysts said. In addition, up until now, they could use traditional technology and still boost capacity.
But now the shift in storage technology is necessary because manufacturers can no longer continue shrinking bits of data, for fear of compromising the data that is being saved.
"We've reached the end of the road," said Michael Hall, a spokesman for Seagate. By standing up bits of data, "you can pack more of (them) in the same patch of real estate."
Competitors, such as Hitachi and Fujitsu, are expected to follow later this year. Toshiba introduced a hard drive using so-called perpendicular recording technology late last year, although the launch was not as large as Seagate's.
"All the major vendors are lining up," said Greg Schulz, founder and senior analyst at StorageIO. "Anyone who is going to stay in this space will have to shift to (this technology)."
The demand, of course, comes from consumers. Last year, they stored 20 GB of data on their laptops, according to IDC, up from 15 GB the year before. That should only climb as Hollywood, less skittish now about online piracy, strikes deals to distribute video via the Internet.
For the most part, consumers should not notice a difference, apart from the increased capacity. Seagate said it is selling the 160-GB hard drive for $325 and not charging a premium for the new technology.
"In the end, it's all about what the user needs," said Mark Geenen, president of TrendFocus. "It's nothing but good news, as digital content becomes more pervasive throughout the home and in PCs. ... Someone is going to get a very souped-up hard drive in their laptop in the near future."

[Pu-239]

Didn't 2.88MB floppies use this?

[phongn]

Didn't 2.88MB floppies use this?

AFAIK, no.