Toshiba Boosts Hard Drive Density By 50%

An anonymous reader writes "Toshiba has unveiled a ground-breaking technology that boosts recording density by 50% on an 80-GB, 1.8", single-platter drive. Using what it calls Discrete Track Recording technology, Toshiba was able to pack 120 GB storage on a single 1.8" platter. The new development will hugely benefit media player, UMPC, and ultra-portable laptop segments where 1.8" drives with maximum possible capacity are in great demand."

Damnit...

[feepness]

Now I have to wait longer for SSD to become the clear winner.

another infomercial

[semiotec]

1. Samsung had announced their 120 Gb 4200 rpm 1.8" drive a couple of weeks earlier (http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/i ndex.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070820005213 &newsLang=en), but there's no sign of it available yet.

2. The Toshiba 120 Gb drive, according to PC Watch Impress (http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2007/0906/tosh iba.htm) is 3600 rpm with CE-ATA interface, not really suitable for notebooks, even ultra-portable ones.

I'd guess the new iPod Classic uses the Toshiba drive, since it supposedly uses even less power compared to their previous 1.8" drives. But if this is the case, it means I can't just rip it out of the iPod to plug into my laptop, since the interface doesn't appear to be compatible with their previous 1.8" drives.

However, I still hope that at least one of these make it to the retail market. It would be nice to be able to double my current 80 Gb drive.

Better information on this

[eclectro]

There is an article about discrete track [eetimes.com] recording that explains it pretty well. Using materials with different magnetic properties they are able to map channels onto the platter (hence the 'discrete'). Presumably this might would be cumbersome to manufacture for larger discs, but less so with smaller disks.

Re:Speed?

[timmarhy]

It will be faster. seek time is a major factor in hard drive speed.

Re:Damnit...

[DrMrLordX]

Just keep your eye on MTRON. They're pushing a lot of SSD harddrives out on the market, albeit at astronomical prices. Still, the performance on their drives is fantastic.

Re:Damnit...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

So what? It's not as if the advancements in hard drives are now unexpected. They are going to be pushed as hard as possible as long as they are competitive. SSDs are getting larger too, and flash chips are continually dropping in price. I really don't expect a "clear" winner for some time. What is a clear winner in one circumstance is a clear loser in another. I use a couple machines that are running on flash drives, one is a 512MB CF drive, but that's because vibration is a problem because it's running a CNC machine, spinning heavy duty motors, resonance, cutting metal and all, otherwise it ate a drive every three years. I call that a clear winner in that case. For other computers that I use to acquire and store media, flash would be a clear loser, it's far cheaper to mirror and back up than it is to go SSD. I expect that flash drives will displace hard drives more and more.

Re:another infomercial

[semiotec]

"You don't put 1.8" drives in notebooks, you put them in iPods. 2.5" drives go into notebooks."

Thanks, I'd be sure to pass that onto Toshiba (R200, R400), Sony (TZ series), HP (nc2400, nc2510) and Dell (D420/430) and tell them that they really should listen to some AC on Slashdot.

"some sort of crazy ultraportable"

and that also means they weight 2 lb instead of 5 lb. The last three of my laptops have all been ultraportables, and all together they still weight less than 15" notebooks out there.

Re:Damnit...

[phillips321]

http://www.mtron.net/eng/index.asp# [mtron.net] - Just in case someone needs to investigate, looks pretty good to me