Seagate Hits 1 Terabit Per Square Inch

MrSeb was one of several readers to submit news that drive manufacturer Seagate has announced (and demoed) the first hard drive to squeeze a terabit into each square inch of platter. "'Initially this will result in 6TB 3.5-inch desktop drives and 2TB 2.5-inch laptop drives, but eventually Seagate is promising up to 60TB and 20TB respectively. To achieve such a huge leap in density, Seagate had to use a technology called heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR). Basically, the main issue that governs hard drive density is the size of each magnetic 'bit.' These can only be made so small until the magnetism of nearby bits affects them. With HAMR, 'high density' magnetic compounds that can withstand further miniaturization are used. The only problem is that these materials, such as iron platinum alloy, are more stubborn when it comes to writing data — but if you heat it first, that problem goes away. With HAMR, Seagate has strapped a laser to the hard drive head; when it wants to write data, the laser turns on. Reading data is still done conventionally, without the laser. In theory, HAMR should allow for areal densities up to 10 terabits per square inch (magnetic sites that are just 1nm long!), and thus desktop hard drives in the 60TB range."

Power?

[Quantus347]

I wonder what the power consumption increase is if you have to strap a heating laser to the write head. Lately the market seem to reward Technology that trends toward less power usage, not more

Cost? Reliability? Water Resistance?

[DarthVain]

As much as I love stories about X company being able to stuff Y capacity into storage device, the last few years have proven instructive.

1) How about doing it and producing it in such a way so that it is cheaper, not more expensive than last year?
2) How about making them at least a little bit reliable. I know you just want us to consume more and more of your drives, but lets get back to 5 year warranty's already. This one year BS is BS.
3) Maybe rather than doing the R&D to find a 60TB HD you do the R&D to find a building lot not on a fscking flood plain?

Thanks,
      From everyone that bought a HD in the last year or so...

Hybrid

[Bensam123]

I still think the answer to both the SSD and Mechanical question is hybrid drives. Seagate has tried them in the past, but they definitely aren't as fast as normal SSDs. If they can improve that tech and attach it to something like this, it's literally the best of both world. Honestly it would just be a much improved drive cache, which Seagate and other drive makers could've improved for years... but somehow never did...