Thermal recording technology lifts the hard drive to terabyte level

Leading storage device manufacturer Seagate has licensed the new completely magnetic disc production technology and promises to expand its hard drive capacity to 1 to 8 terabytes (TB).

Seagate's Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) technology is essentially a lubrication mechanism with nanotubes that make the read / write head closer to the disk surface.

The smaller the volume of data bits, the more chance the manufacturer has to compress more bits on a device. However, in order to read or write such small bits, the read / write head must be closer to the surface. Magnetic materials must also be heated during recording, but this will cause the lubrication film to dry out.

Seagate has overcome this situation by creating a hollow inside the disk to contain nano lubricating tubes. They will radiate periodically and settle on the surface to replace dry lubricants. This method is similar to the production of CDs and DVDs.

Seagate believes HAMR technology will help produce 1.8 inch 600 GB drives, 2.5 inches 1.46 TB or 3.5 inch 7.5 TB drives (1 TB = 1,000 GB). However, they did not announce the production schedule and the time to release such devices.

TN