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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: 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]

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