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.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday September 14 2017, @02:38AM (4 children)
No; referring to all the mutli-TB drives suddenly on the consumer market. I remember when they were all "datacenter drives" too.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday September 14 2017, @02:47AM (3 children)
I'll be really impressed when I see a helium-filled consumer HDD. I don't think there has been a helium-filled drive intended (and priced) for consumers to date, but it's entirely possible that we will see that (helium allows you to increase platter density/count).
AFAIK all of the capacity points above 8 TB are paired with helium.
With WD, Seagate, and what's left of Toshiba all offering helium-filled drives, one of them should be able to make the jump to consumers. And I think some consumers would buy it.
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(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:45AM (2 children)
I just saw a 10TB offered ... ah, hell, I don't remember which retailer but one of the consumer outlets. I rather doubt consumer and enterprise are different under the hood, at that level.
And my first thought was... considering the *gasp* price of tape libraries, how exactly are we supposed to back up that much data without growing our own server farms??
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday September 14 2017, @05:01AM (1 child)
Ok, there is this 10 TB HDD [pcworld.com] with no helium.
And there is this helium-filled lineup [anandtech.com]. I guess you could call them consumer drives, but they are certainly pricey.
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(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday September 14 2017, @05:38AM
Yeah, I won't be running out to buy them this week, and probably not next week either!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.