Going perpendicular

When the PC gained widespread appeal in the mid-80s, hard drives typically held 10MB — and lightened your wallet by about $1,200.

That was then. Now hard drives hold well over 1,000 times that amount and are smaller, lighter, quieter, more energy-efficient, and cooler as well. But that doesn’t mean we’re satisfied. Every advance in software, digital cameras, video cameras, and MP3 players has us yearning for more storage capacity. 300GB drives are almost considered low-end and sell for under $100. 500GB hard drives are commonly available.
Thankfully, there’s more capacity to come. A new data recording method dubbed “perpendicular recording” has allowed data storage engineers to squeeze more data onto the platters that make up a conventional hard drive, resulting in a substantial boost in capacity for both notebook and desktop hard drives. The result: multi-terabyte (TB) hard drives are right around the corner.
It’s a good thing, too, because current hard drives were reaching capacity limits imposed by their underlying technology. Today’s commonly-used hard drives employ a method called “longitudinal recording” (LR) to write data. In longitudinal recording, data is laid down in a single layer underneath of the small, magnetised recording heads used in hard drives.
The new perpendicular recording method improves upon the prior LR technology in two ways. First, the hard drive’s recording heads address a narrower area on the hard drive, allowing more data to be written. Second, and more significantly, perpendicular recording hard drives utilise new recording platters that allow data to be written on two layers of each platter, the primary layer and a new layer called the “soft underlayer” (SUL). Essentially, then, these new perpendicular recording hard drives stack data vertically — hence the term “perpendicular recording.”
For hard drive consumers, this data stacking means a big increase in storage capacity. Desktop drives that employ perpendicular recording are debuting now at 750GB, a hefty 50 per cent increase over the highest-capacity traditional hard drives.
Whether you can use these new hard drives now or not, one thing is clear: Perpendicular recording will transform the hard drive industry.