Seagate has claimed to have set a new world record for magnetic recording by cramming 421 Gbits per square inch (421 Gbit/in2) using perpendicular recording heads and media created with currently available production equipment. Dr Mark Kryder, senior vice president and director of research, Seagate unveiled the findings during his keynote presentation at the IDEMA DISKCON show in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the hard drive.

Seagate expects the capacity ranges to result in solutions ranging in 40GB to 275GB for 1- and 1.8-inch consumer electronics drives, 500GB for 2.5-inch notebook drives, and nearly 2.5TB for 3.5-inch desktop and enterprise class drives. At 2.5TB capacity, a hard drive would be capable of storing 41,650 hours of music, 800,000 digital photographs, 4,000 hours of digital video or 1,250 video games. Seagate anticipates that solutions at these density levels could begin to emerge in 2009.

Cripes — can you imagine a 275gb iPod?



  1. ECA says:

    I do not see the need.
    I prefer at LEAST 2 drives installed on a PC. The second as a backup or Mirror of the other.

  2. Angel H. Wong says:

    Does this means that Windows Vista’s replacement will eat two HD-DVDs?

  3. James Hill says:

    If they want to play HD video on that tiny iPod screen, sure.

  4. Dougless says:

    Think of how much more data you could lose when your disk crashes.

  5. Matthew says:

    “Cripes — can you imagine a 275gb iPod?”

    Yes, yes, yes. Bring it on!

  6. Mark Derail says:

    This is to compete with solid state (aka flash memory) hard disk replacements, whose costs are plumeting.

    A hard disk will still fail. In the same space/volume as a single 3.5″ hard disk, you can get Raid-5 one terrabyte, with zero seek time, zero access time, etc.

    Problem is the price, upwards of 10k for one. But it will never fail (in the next 25 years).

    Windows Vista support for Flash Drives to accelerate boot/reboot is a taste of no-more-hard disks to come.

    So the hard disks companies have to come with cheap solutions to stay in business.

    SanDisk released 64Gigs in the size of a regular Flash card….Moore’s Law doesn’t apply to hard disks.

    I *hate* hard disks, only slightly less that *hate* tape backups.

  7. sdf says:

    I think cheap, miniaturized storage is more important. More important still is *bandwidth* (WAN, LAN and component)

  8. Stone Golem says:

    sweet, that leave me 5 gigs for music once I store all the porn

  9. V says:

    Every time we get more power programmers think they’re abliged to use it. So yes, Vienna will come on two HD DVDS, and it consist entirely of spaghetti code that nobody could interpret in their lifetime.

  10. rjisinspired says:

    All I can think of is how accurate will drives get when that much storage is confined to such a small space? I keep thinking about what Steve Gibson had said during the spot on Leo’s show some years ago about ecc and how drives have become dependent on it to correct for errors on a constant basis. Imagine the amount of errors needed to correct a 3.5in. 2.75TB drive? There’s gotta be a physical limitation? “Cramming as many bits as they possibly can.”

    For what I do I would be happy with 40GBs. I have been using 12GBs for a long time and have no problems. Sure I have a lot of backups but I like to keep it small. I bought a 40Gb drive last year and will use it when the old drive konks out. I always make external backups so drive failures aren’t an issue for me.

    I don’t see too many smaller drives around much for sale. For me less is more, performance-wise and space-wise.

  11. Richard L says:

    Will the datarate in and out of those drive go up with the same factor of 5x compared to current drive? I doubt it, it will probably just go up by a factor of 25 to 50% only. I’m already nervous when it takes 6 hours for 5 disks (sata 400GB) in a RAID 5 to rebuild after one disk fails. Can you imagin waiting more then a day for a 5×2.5TB to rebuild.

  12. Mr. H. Fusion says:

    I have trouble with numbers bigger then my IQ.

  13. People have been saying for years that we don’t need more space, but something always comes along and we do need it. It’s not Windows bloat… it’s media. Mark my words… the DVD format war may be over before it starts, and we end up watching on computer-based systems and Internet delivery.

  14. ECA says:

    ONLy thing that comes ALONG is Bloated programs that do something you DONT want.
    Look at office.. you need a book the size of a dicionary to know what MOSt of it does.
    And most dont understand that Art and scanning takes ALOT of ram in the first place.
    Then the idea of going to a 64bit OS, ISNT a Small invironment. You are doubling the Data size, data types, and so forth. Its not simplfiing the format, its making it BIGGER, for no reason.
    WHAT in the world requires a 64 bit format.
    Not writing a letter.
    Not crating a spread sheet.
    Not playing games.
    You CANT see 64bit graphics any better then 32bit, and not much over 16bit.
    Is it going to be faster?? Maybe, but probably NOT. As it will still be Bloatware.
    There are OTHER options that could make Intel based machines ALOT faster.
    1. Use more then 1 control chip for USB,SERIAL,IDE,SATA, and most of the interface on the mobo.
    2. make the mobo Parallel processed
    3. Incorporate the codecs ON the video and audio boards, so the CPU dont need to handle them, and add a TBC(timing device) to link them as NEEDED. Its already done for most of the board in USB and IDE channels.

    These 3 things would accelerate the system about 4 times if NOT more.

    4. goto a PPC format(power PC)
    Intell wanted to do this YEARS ago, but MS said not to, as BILL didnt know how to program for it.
    5. Dual and Dual Quad, is a complicated way for you to use, 2-4 CPU’s. It may save SOME time, but its just another marketing ploy.. I’d rather a mobo that I can set, 1,2,4,8,16 CPU’s into the board as I NEED to, rahter then pay for something thats NOT needed NOW, but maybe in the future.
    6. business and MOSt of us, dont NEED this much power to do the THINGS we do. When Linux servers can have 64 game players online, and MS-server can handle 16 on the same configuration, doesnt this point to s DIFFERENT problem??


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