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.
Tosihba'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.
