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Glass Substrate Could Enable Hard Drives With 12 Platters

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday September 13 2017, @06:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the defrag-with-windex dept.

takyon writes:

Using a glass substrate instead of aluminum could allow 12 platters to be crammed into a 3.5" hard disk drive enclosure:

Even if many modern systems eschew classic hard drive storage designs in favor of solid state alternatives, there are still a number of companies working on improving the technology. One of those is Hoya, which is currently prototyping glass substrates for hard drive platters of the future which could enable the production of drives with as much as 20TB of storage space.

Hard drive platters are traditionally produced using aluminum substrates. While these substrates have enabled many modern advances in hard drive technology, glass substrates can be made with similar densities, but can be much thinner, leading to higher capacity storage drives. Hoya has already managed the creation of substrates as thin as 0.381mm, which is close to half the thickness of existing high-density drives.

In one cited example, an existing 12-terabyte drive from Western Digital was made up of eight platters. Hoya believes that by decreasing the thickness of the platters through its glass technology, it could fit as many as 12 inside a 3.5 inch hard drive casing. That would enable up to 18TB of storage space in a single drive (thanks Nikkei).

When that is blended with a technology known as "shingled magnetic recording," 20TB should be perfectly achievable.

Toshiba is reportedly planning to release a 14 TB helium-filled hard drive by the end of the year.

Also at Network World.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by inertnet on Wednesday September 13 2017, @07:57PM (8 children)

    by inertnet (4071) on Wednesday September 13 2017, @07:57PM (#567428) Journal

    With every glass I lose more memory.

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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 13 2017, @08:56PM (3 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 13 2017, @08:56PM (#567456) Journal

    Memory upgrades are reasonably inexpensive. And it's easy to have 32 GB or 64 GB these days, without losing much of it.

    --
    The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.

    • (Score: 1) by Pax on Wednesday September 13 2017, @10:02PM (2 children)

      by Pax (5056) on Wednesday September 13 2017, @10:02PM (#567498)

      where have you been? RAM prices have risen sharly.. last year i was able to get 32GB for about 130 for cheap shit to the £146.97 GBP Corsair Vengence 3000Mhx blue LED(on offer) I got..NOT any more pal the 16GB kit is http://www.ebuyer.com/766191-corsair-vengeance-blue-led-16gb-ddr4-3000mhz-memory-kit-cmu16gx4m2c3000c15b-cmu16gx4m2c3000c15b [ebuyer.com] 173.99GBP

      32 gig kits of other colours are 298.99 to 309.99 GBP clicky [ebuyer.com]
      even taking into account the 40 GBP off I got that's quite a price hike over the past year

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday September 13 2017, @10:14PM

        by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Wednesday September 13 2017, @10:14PM (#567504) Journal

        Here's some sources in case somebody doesn't believe you:

        https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/18/dram_bonanza_for_top_three_suppliers/ [theregister.co.uk]

        Global DRAM shortages might have proved a pain in the butt for buyers of PCs, smartphones and servers, but – unsurprisingly – they were a boon for the memory manufacturers.

        Sales of the component hit a record level of $14.1bn in the first three months of 2017, up 13.4 per cent year-on-year, according to the latest numbers from Trendforce's DRAMeXchange division.

        And the data indicates at least a 30 per cent increase in the average contract price of PC DRAM modules between the fourth quarter of 2016 and the first quarter of 2017.

        http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1331796 [eetimes.com]

        https://epsnews.com/2017/08/18/dram-prices-continue-climb/ [epsnews.com]

        DRAM buyers continued to face tight supply and rising prices in the second quarter of 2017 with no relief in sight in the second half of the year. Pricing for DRAMs is expected to remain on an upward trend, while production capacity expansion will be limited in the second half of 2017. Suppliers are expected to adjust their product mixes based on margins, according to market analysts.

        http://www.anandtech.com/show/11724/samsung-sk-hynix-graphics-memory-prices-increase-over-30-percent [anandtech.com]

        In the midst of a global DRAM shortage, Digitimes reports that the market prices for graphics memory from Samsung and SK Hynix have increased by over 30% for August. This latest jump in memory prices is apparently due to the pair of DRAM manufacturers repurposing part of their VRAM production capacities for server and smartphone memories instead. As Digitimes’ sources report, this VRAM pricing is expected to increase further in September, impacting graphics card and gaming notebook manufacturers. Consumers have already felt the pain through skyrocketing DDR4 prices, and TrendForce/DRAMeXchange expects the upward trend of PC DRAM chips to continue to 2018.

        http://www.dramexchange.com/ [dramexchange.com]

        --
        [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:27PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:27PM (#567893) Journal

        I guess I think of cheap in a different way.

        If adding 32 GB of additional memory for about $300 gets me to market six months ahead of my competitor, it's cheap. Same with throwing more and more cpu cores at it. It's cheap.

        That, and the fact that it's not my $300 I'm spending when asking for such an upgrade.

        --
        The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @09:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @09:00PM (#567460)

    *hic* just one more

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 13 2017, @10:58PM (2 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 13 2017, @10:58PM (#567518) Journal

    That's not the glasses' fault, it is caused but what you pour in the glass.
    Anyway, resorting to the use of filled glasses is indicative you want to escape from some (possibly traumatic) memories - so I'd say it works as intended.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 14 2017, @03:57AM (1 child)

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Thursday September 14 2017, @03:57AM (#567626) Journal

      You could say he's getting row-hammered? :D

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:58AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:58AM (#567644) Journal

        Yeah, to the point on which he became inert.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford