Toshiba Corporation today announced
the world's first hard disk drive (HDD) based on
perpendicular recording, a breakthrough technology
that sets new benchmarks for data density, boosting
the capacity of a single 1.8-inch hard-disk platter
to 40 gigabytes. Toshiba has brought the new technology
to two high capacity drives: the MK4007GAL HDD packs
40GB into a drive only five millimeters thick, while
the MK8007GAH achieves a capacity of 80GB--the largest
capacity*1 yet achieved in the 1.8-inch form factor.
Toshiba plans to start mass production of the 40GB
and 80GB drives in the first and second quarters,
respectively, of the fiscal year starting April 1,
2005.
Toshiba is the first company in the storage device
industry to commercialize perpendicular magnetic recording,
and the company has applied the technology to HDD that
achieve unsurpassed recording density and high operating
reliability. This success rests on development of a
new magnetic disk structured to support perpendicular
recording, a new high performance perpendicular magnetic
head, and disk and head integration technology that
maximizes their combined performance.
"It is my great pleasure to
announce our achievement of introducing the new HDDs
made possible by our breakthrough in perpendicular
recording technology," said Kazuyoshi Yamamori,
Vice President of Storage Device Division at Toshiba
Corporation's Digital Media Network Company, "Our
research confirmed the superior potential of perpendicular
recording technology, and we have now achieved the
core head and disk technologies required for reliable,
high-density recording. The performance of our new
HDDs, and our success in bringing this important
technology to market ahead of the industry, allows
Toshiba to promote continued product differentiation
and to further expand our business in small form
factor HDDs."
Conventional longitudinal recording
stores data on a magnetic disk as microscopic magnet
bits aligned in plane. Although advances in magnetic
coatings continue to improve data recording densities
on HDD, the magnetic bits repulse each other due
to in-plane alignment. Squeezing more bits on to
a disk will eventually reach a point where crowding
degrades recorded bit quality. This places fast-approaching
limits on storage capacities. By standing the magnetic
bits on end, perpendicular recording reinforces magnetic
coupling between neighboring bits, achieving stable
higher recording densities and improved storage capacity.
Toshiba's new HDDs achieve the highest
areal density yet reported, 206 megabits per square
millimeter*3 (133 gigabits per square inch). The
40GB platter capacity is 33%*4 more than that of
Toshiba's conventional HDD.
Toshiba will also apply the new
technology to the 0.85-inch HDD that it announced
in January this year, a move that will push capacity
to 6 to 8GB per platter and support Toshiba in pioneering
the market for ultra-small form factor drives.
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