Seagate Showboats New Recording Technology
Seagate Showboats New Recording Technology
January 19, 2006: Hard disk maker Seagate has started shipping the first 160GB 2.5-inch notebook hard drives using perpendicular recording.
160GB isn’t big news in terms of capacity, but it is very interesting in terms of recording technology. Seagate’s new drive, the Momentus 5400, uses perpendicular recording technology which stacks data vertically instead of spreading it out horizontally.
Hard disks store data magnetically, arranging it horizontally across the surface space of the disk. As recording technology gets better, smaller particles can be used to increase capacity. The problem is, with capacities reaching 500GB manufacturers are rapidly approaching the maximum amount of data capacity they can safely pack on to a disk.
Perpendicular recording allows much greater data density without risk of making it unstable. It changes the way the heads interact with the disk, and allows more data to be read in a single pass. Eliminating the need to speed up
The immediate area where the drives will show their benefits is in Notebooks as they use less power whilst boosting performance and typically low onboard storage capacity.
The new technology is a massive change in the way hard disks traditionally work and is expected to increase the maximum capacity of magnetic drives five fold in the next three to five years.
Other companies such as Toshiba are already announcing products built on the same technology. Seagate plans to introduce the technology to its 3.5-inch, 1-inch and 1.8-inch drives in the future.
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