TDK Corporation plans to improve the current HDD tech by doubling the medium areal density available for data storage. The Japanese company announced the development of its new magnetic heads for thermal-assisted recording of digital data, a technology that should bring another substantial evolution for hard disk drives after Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR).
Magnetic heads capable of thermal-assisted recording (also known as heat-assisted magnetic recording or HAMR) are one of the most chatted technology breakthroughs for magnetic storage of the last years, and now TDK says the heads will begin shipping inside next-generation HDDs within the end of 2014.
Thanks to a new, highly stable magnetic platter made by Showa Denko K.K., the Japanese manufacturer was able to harness the short laser pulses of the HAMR head to heat the medium before recording the digital information: in this way, the space available for storage grows beyond what’s possible with current PMR hard disk drives.
TDK claims to have achieved a storage areal density of 1.5 Terabits per square inch, ie. a value that’s two times higher than today’s standards. Thanks to the chemically stable magnetic platters+HAMR head combination, the Japanese company says it will be possible to produce 2.5” HDDs with 2 Terabytes of storage space and 3.5”, desktop-tailored hard disk drives with 8 to 10 Terabytes of available storage.
Source: Tech-On!