Toshiba Storage Device Division (SDD) announced shipment of what it claims is the world's first hard disk drives (HDD)-based on perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR).
The 1.8-inch HDD, a small form factor used primarily in consumer electronics devices, allows up to 10,000 songs or 25,000 photos on a single 40GByte platter, Toshiba said, noting that this is the largest single platter achieved on the 1.8-inch form factor.
"Toshiba has started an exciting new frontier for the HDD industry by leading the race to achieve this revolutionary technology, which has been the industry's aim for more than 20 years," said Scott Maccabe, VP of Toshiba SDD, in a statement. "PMR opens the door to products we haven't even begun to imagine, by removing the technical barriers inherent to packing more data on an HDD. Providing greater storage capacity on mobile disk drives allows Toshiba to give system OEMs the tools they need for next-generation digital information and entertainment devices."
PMR is a new magnetic disk structured to support perpendicular recording and is an option to conventional longitudinal recording, which 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, when the densities become too extreme, the magnetic bits repulse each other due to in-plane alignment, Toshiba explained. By standing the magnetic bits on end, perpendicular recording reinforces magnetic coupling between neighboring bits, achieving higher and more stable recording densities and improved storage capacity, Toshiba added.
The 1.8-inch PMR HDD is now shipping in Toshiba's new Gigabeat F41, Toshiba said, noting that it is currently shipping the 40GByte MK4007GAL to OEM and channel partners.
The company plans to apply PMR technology to its 0.85-inch HDD in 2006, increasing capacity to 6GBytes-8GBytes per platter.
