1TB Drives

[LunarMist]

Hitachi PR

 

[sechs]

I was hoping to make the switch to punch card soon....

 

[time]

... manipulating the head and media so that the distance between them is a mere 10 nanometers or 1/10,000th of a human hair.

10 nanometers? :bigeek:

So this mechanical device relies on a tolerance 10 times smaller than the resolution in a state of the art CPU?

I'm trying to imagine what a head crash looks like when the distance is about 30 atoms ...

 

[Buck]

Currently fly height is roughly 1 microinch, or 100 atoms.

 

[jtr1962]

I heard somewhere that new coatings may actually enable the head to ride right on the platter. In effect, the drive would be "crashing" all the time. 30 atoms separating you from destruction of your data is rather scary. I also tend to think by 2010 or so SSDs will make huge inroads into conventional storage, challenging it not only in terms of $ per GB but also raw capacity. Of course, I could be wrong...

 

[iGary]

...I also tend to think by 2010 or so SSDs will make huge inroads into conventional storage, challenging it not only in terms of $ per GB but also raw capacity. Of course, I could be wrong...

My prediction on this has been that the technology used in mass produced Solid State Drives will be based on polymer memory (a.k.a. -- plastic memory). Actually, it might have some fast cache / buffer RAM much like today's hard drives do, but the actual working storage medium will be non-volatile plastic memory.

I don't see flash memory making the grade from a price point, or other technologies, like holographic, capable of challenging plastic memory on price / storage capacity. Holo cards and discs will have their place as ultra-dense removable and WORM storage media.

Magnetic RAM will probably become the most widely used primary memory for computers. If magnetic RAM somehow attains high storage capacity at a reasonable price point, you could completely do away with the notion of secondary storage (hard drives) and store data files and directories in non-volatile memory. Instant on, instant access!