Perpendicular storage gives 2.5" HDD better capacity...

The forum for non-component-related silent pc discussions.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
Edward Ng
SPCR Reviewer
Posts: 2696
Joined: Thu Dec 11, 2003 9:53 pm
Location: Scarsdale, NY
Contact:

Perpendicular storage gives 2.5" HDD better capacity...

Post by Edward Ng » Wed Jun 08, 2005 12:41 pm

I thought this would be some nice news for many here. I know I'm stoked about it! The current capacity of 2.5" drives is what keeps many people from changing over, but this should help out a bunch (no word yet on pricing, or how these drives will compare to current parallel storage 3.5" drives, in terms of GB/$). Although it's true, there's nothing stopping them from making 3.5" drives on this same technology...

-Ed

sionnach
Posts: 23
Joined: Tue Apr 19, 2005 6:32 am
Location: Ireland

Post by sionnach » Wed Jun 08, 2005 12:57 pm

they are developing this for 3.5 inch, this has been known for a few months now, it's all explained in this wonderfully bizarre hitachi flash animation, enjoy (:

http://hitachigst.com/hdd/research/reco ... ation.html

lenny
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 1642
Joined: Wed May 28, 2003 10:50 am
Location: Somewhere out there

Post by lenny » Wed Jun 08, 2005 1:06 pm

Actually, storage capacity is only part of what's keeping me from switching to 2.5" drives. It's also price per GB (currently about 4x that of 3.5") and (to a lesser extent) speed.

I'm not sure what makes notebook drives more expensive currently - perhaps because they're targeted towards notebooks. Just read somewhere that notebooks outsold desktops for the first time, so hopefully price of 2.5" drives will drop as volume increases. The 5.25" HDD was replaced by 3.5" devices, so it's not inconceivable that 3.5" will be replaced by 2.5".

Off topic : reportedly heard on a home shopping channel in another country - "This laptop is really light, but of course the hard disk is currently mostly empty."

Edit : that flash animation is really funny :-) I read about this earlier in a couple of places too. Usually mentioned in the same breath as "terabyte 3.5" drive".
Last edited by lenny on Wed Jun 08, 2005 1:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

thetoad30
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 368
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 11:33 am
Location: King of Prussia, PA

Post by thetoad30 » Wed Jun 08, 2005 1:18 pm

LOL - My hard drive is half full... but my battery is almost empty, so they cancel out.

I wonder if a hard drive eats up more power to spin when its full cause its so much heavier... LOL

Ok, enough of that...

My guess for the price is the fact that notebook drives have to be smaller, have to endure much more extremes, and have to endure those extremes much faster than a 3.5". Also, because the platters are smaller, and have to fit in much more of a strict tolerance, they need to use high-precision parts in order to be within parameters.

Its not easy running 5400 RPM in a space that's almost 1/4 the size of 3.5" disks. That's just my thoughts though...

Shining Arcanine
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 502
Joined: Sat Oct 23, 2004 2:02 pm

Re: Perpendicular storage gives 2.5" HDD better capacit

Post by Shining Arcanine » Wed Jun 08, 2005 2:26 pm

Edward Ng wrote:I thought this would be some nice news for many here. I know I'm stoked about it! The current capacity of 2.5" drives is what keeps many people from changing over, but this should help out a bunch (no word yet on pricing, or how these drives will compare to current parallel storage 3.5" drives, in terms of GB/$). Although it's true, there's nothing stopping them from making 3.5" drives on this same technology...

-Ed
So far it is a 60% density increase over current technology. I'm sure many people expected more (myself included) but as with all technology, the 1000% higher density figure is probably the theoretical limit.

sgtpokey
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 301
Joined: Sat Dec 14, 2002 11:29 pm
Location: Dublin, CA / Liverpool UK

Post by sgtpokey » Thu Jun 09, 2005 5:09 am

Seagate announced the availability of their 160gb 2.5" Perpendicular storage hard drive: 160gb in the 2.5" form factor is pretty cool. I assume then that the perpendicular stuff allowed Seagate to increase their 2.5" platter density from 50gb to 80gb judging from their previous 2-platter high of 100gb.

EDIT: On second reading, it's a paper announcement with availability in the winter:

"The Seagate 500GB DB35 Series will ship this summer. The Seagate EE25 Series will ship this fall. The Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 and the Seagate 120GB Portable External Hard Drive will start shipping later this summer. The Seagate 500GB External Hard Drive will ship this fall. The Seagate Momentus 5400 FDE and the Momentus 5400.3 will ship this winter."


http://www.hexus.net/content/press_rele ... Q9MTcxOA==

Let's get Perpendicular!!
btw, Hitachi's little perpendicular music video is great!! Fits into the "Schoolhouse Rock" style perfectly (In fact, the intro looks and sounds a lot like the "I'm just a Bill, on Capital Hill" song)

Mats
Posts: 3044
Joined: Fri Dec 26, 2003 6:54 am
Location: Sweden

Post by Mats » Thu Jun 09, 2005 12:00 pm

The Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 and the Seagate 120GB Portable External Hard Drive will start shipping later this summer.
:shock:
Already? Sweet! I guess they have realized something about the current Barracuda... The 500 GB model was supposed to arrive four months ago, but for some reason they didn't.

Blazkowicz
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Jun 11, 2005 10:12 pm
Location: France

Post by Blazkowicz » Sun Jun 12, 2005 7:56 pm

thetoad30 wrote:LOL - My hard drive is half full... but my battery is almost empty, so they cancel out.

I wonder if a hard drive eats up more power to spin when its full cause its so much heavier... LOL

Ok, enough of that...
final bit : a 5"1/4 30MB hdd is really small, a 3"1/2 1GB is much bigger than it, and a 2"1/2 40GB hdd is much bigger than the preceding 3"1/2 one :P

Blazkowicz
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Jun 11, 2005 10:12 pm
Location: France

Post by Blazkowicz » Sun Jun 12, 2005 8:01 pm

about $ per GB, laptop notebook will still be much more expensive in my opinion. right now a 250GB hitachi is cheaper than a 80GB notebook HDD, with perpendicular we'll maybe get one year from now 500GB vs 160GB at approximately the same price . .

frostedflakes
Posts: 1608
Joined: Tue Jan 04, 2005 4:02 pm
Location: United States

Post by frostedflakes » Sun Jun 12, 2005 8:24 pm

We buy notebook hard drives because they offer low noise, low vibration, and low heat, not because we enjoy paying more for less storage. :lol:

For those who have the money to burn, perpendicular technology in laptop drives should make it possible to obtain all three of the above, and still have a descent amount of storage space.

Post Reply