Hitachi research and development is working on a new storage technology that is expected to increase storage density to 2.5 terabit per square inch. That’s five times the capacity of the densest hard drives of today and thus could lead towards 10 TB HDDs.

To achieve this density, Hitachi is developing a thermally-assisted recording method that heats up the media with a 20nm laser beam while the magnetic head is writing the smaller bits of data.

In thermally-assisted recording, magnetic grains can be made smaller while still resisting thermal fluctuations at room temperature. As the name suggests, thermally-assisted recording uses a laser to heat up the media while the magnetic head is writing the smaller bits of data. This enables the use of media that is magnetically stable at room temperature with the very small magnetic grains required for high-density storage.

Alas there is no concrete information on when the technology will be commercially available, and even if it is expensive they will have to find a successor to perpendicular magnetic recording, which according to the same source will have a hard time reaching even 1 terabit per square inch.

Hitachi announced that it is now shipping the worlds first, two terabyte (2TB), 7200 RPM hard disk drive (HDD). The new, colossal, 2TB Deskstar 7K2000 blends high performance and high capacity with low power and other eco-friendly features designed to enable Energy-Star rated computers and other high performance desktop systems.

The new Deskstar 7K2000 is now in its fourth-generation using the company’s unique five-platter design with relaxed bit density and proven perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology. Couple this with an ultra-quiet operation, a 32MB cache and a 3Gb/s SATA interface, and the new Deskstar 7K2000 is the ideal desktop drive for power users, gamers or anyone looking for a big, fast hard drive.

In addition to the new 2TB Deskstar 7K2000, Hitachi GST is also refreshing its high-volume desktop hard drive family. The new 7200 RPM Deskstar 7K1000.C family will deliver up to 500GB per platter, and will come in capacities of 160GB to 1TB, hitting the capacity and performance sweet spots for mainstream desktop applications. Like previous generations, both the 7K2000 and 7K1000.C Hitachi Deskstar drives feature industry-standard 512-byte sector formatting, a patented ramp load/unload design to increase shock protection, and Thermal Fly-height Control (TFC) to maintain a consistent fly-height during the read/write process for added data reliability. Volume production and worldwide availability of the new Deskstar 7K1000.C will begin in the current quarter.

Leveraging the company’s eighth-generation power management technology, including power-saving innovations like the Hitachi Voltage Efficiency Regulator (HiVERT™), the Deskstar 7K2000 and 7K1000.C deliver outstanding power management and thermal emissions to help manufacturers meet energy compliance targets for their computer systems and storage-based solutions. For example, the new Deskstar 7K2000 offers 10 percent idle power savings over previous generations, and on a watt-per-GB basis, idle power has improved more than 120 percent. The new Deskstar 7K1000.C is expected to deliver best-in-class power efficiency at 4.4 watts or less idle power, which is the best in the industry when compared to current generation, competing desktop drives.

In addition to being RoHS compliant and low in power, all new Deskstar drives are now Halogen free across the entire family, earning both the Deskstar 7K2000 and 7K1000.C the Hitachi EcoTrac classification.

Incoming search terms:

• ECOTRAC 120 VID: