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."

Re:Damnit...

[timmarhy]

you were always going to have to wait a long time.

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

[nmb3000]

Your hard drive was likely still under warranty through Seagate -- did you look into it and see if they would replace it for you?

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...

[toddestan]

I would think that it would be cheaper and easier just to take two standard drives and RAID them for the same effect rather than to build some two servo monstrousity.

Re:Damnit...

[timeOday]

No, I think SSD really will win. Over the past 5 years, solid state has doubled in capacity over and over again, while hard drive capacity growth has slowed. The net effect has been tremendous gains for flash memory.

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...

[mcrbids]

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...

[Ramble]

Possibly they'll win one day but at the moment (and this will be true for some time) there is no clear advantage to SSDs. Rubbish storage capacity, similar throughput and expensive as hell. Latency is one of the only things they have going for them.

Re:Damnit...

[owlstead]

Throughput is lower, but SSD's already provide faster startup times than HDD's. Latency, reliability, size, low power use, noise are all clear advantages for SSD's over hard drive technology. If prices come down a bit (or rather, a lot) for SSD's when they become more regular, HDD's will only have size and size per dollar left as advantages.

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.