Toshiba Boosts Hard Drive Density By 50% 129
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."
Re:Damnit... (Score:3, Insightful)
yes spinning disks suck, but 100x the cost sucks even MORE. SSD is up there with those holographic drives we keep hearing about that are only 2 years away...
Re:Its still a toshiba (Score:5, Insightful)
I imagine that is the least of his worries. When I lost an 80GB drive a couple years ago I would have gladly paid several times the price of a new one if I could only have gotten the contents back. While a free replacement drive might lessen the blow somewhat--as geeky as it might sound--losing a hard drive with gigabytes of content you really care about is a gut-wrenching experience. Everything from my high school days (homework, projects, work, programming, games, music... everything) was gone in one fail swoop.
The only thing similar to it is having your house burn down. Sure insurance should cover it all, but there is no way to get back what was really lost. I suppose if nothing else it taught me the importance of hardware redundancy, though it seemed a high price to pay at the time.
Re:well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Damnit... (Score:5, Insightful)
The other trend I see is satisfaction with hard drive sizes. Notice how the blurb for this article only mentioned 1.8" platters, as if capacity was only lacking in small devices? For most people, requirements for storage simply aren't growing. Even Vista is insignificant on a cheap, commonplace 500 GB drive. My PVR PC still has a 160 GB drive, I just can't be bothered to upgrade.
With near 0 access latency and higher reliability, flash doesn't have to beat winchester drives in $$/GB to win. It just has to be big enough and cheap enough, and it's getting there.
Re:Damnit... (Score:3, Insightful)
I wouldn't bet on that. At some point, no moving parts has to beat moving parts.
Yeah, like how the Peltier cooler has replaced mechanical refrigerators. Or the thermocouple has replaced mechanical generators and steam in nuclear power plants.
Oh, wait....
Re:Damnit... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Damnit... (Score:3, Insightful)
For my OS, flash seems a very logical choice. Price and some uncertainties about the flash currently on the market have withhold me from buying it so far, but this will probably end pretty soon. For my video and MP3 collection, well, HDD's and (original) DVD's are the only logical choice for me.