While getting a solid state drive in your PC desktop or notebook may be very sexy to some people, especially in terms of fast boot times and quick application launches, the truth is that SSDs are still much more expensive compared to good old fashioned mechanical hard drives. That being said, those hard drives are getting bigger and bigger by the quarter in terms of its storage space. Two TB hard drives are now being sold and even larger drives are coming in the future.
Now there"s word that TDK has developed a technology that, if it really works, could instantly double the storage space on regular hard drives. As The Register reports, the technique involves what is known as heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR). While details are still a bit sketchy, the idea is that a laser, combined with a new way to make the hard drive platters, will be used to basically double the amount of data that can be stored on one hard drive platter.
TDK has reportedly used the HAMR technique to create a two TB hard drive using platters that would normally only have enough space for one TB of data storage. The article points out if this technology is used on a four platter, four TB hard drive it would effectively create a massive eight TB drive. So far there"s no word on how much a HAMR-based hard drive would cost in relation to a standard drive. There"s also no word on when, or even if, a HAMR-based hard drive would become commercially available.