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Topic: Storage

Seagate achieves hard drive 'milestone'; storage capacity could soon double

Summary: Seagate is boasting that it has become the first hard drive producer to achieve a storage density of 1 terabyte per square inch.

Rachel King

By for Between the Lines |

While hard drive manufacturers worldwide continue to deal with the aftermath caused by severe flooding in Thailand last fall, Seagate continues to push forward with a new technology "milestone."

Seagate is boasting that it has become the first hard drive producer to achieve a storage density of 1 terabyte per square inch. The significance here is that this paves the way to double the storage capacity of current hard drives over the next decade, especially with 3.5-inch drives with space of 60TB or more.

For reference, the maximum capacity of current 3.5-inch hard drives is 3 terabytes, at about 620 gigabits per square inch. Furthermore, 2.5-inch drives can fit a maximum of 750 gigabytes.

To put this into another mind-boggling perspective, Seagate reps explained in a release that "the bits within a square inch of disk space, at the new milestone, far outnumber stars in the Milky Way, which astronomers put between 200 billion and 400 billion."

Then again, what opportunities could this advancement in local storage present as more consumers and businesses move to the cloud? Considering how much more media content (i.e. books, movies and music) is bought and consumed digitally rather than on paper or discs, there's definitely still a call for more local storage space on computers and tablets.

Mark Re, senior vice president of Heads and Media Research and Development at Seagate, added in the release that "the growth of social media, search engines, cloud computing, rich media and other data-hungry applications continues to stoke demand for ever greater storage capacity."

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Topics: Storage, Cisco, Cloud, Dell, Hardware, IBM

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14 comments
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  • More mindless stupidity from this blogger

    Read the press release. It says teraBIT per sq inch, NOT terabyte. Huge difference and an inexcusable error from an alleged tech blogger.
    D.T.Long
    Reply Vote

    • Condescend much?

      I hope the next time you make a minor slip-up the whole world drops on you like a ton of bricks. Of course, I'm sure you're completely infallible.
      I12BPhil
      Reply Vote

      • No I am not

        But if you have been around here for a while, you may have discovered that Rachel does not produce much of value, and never seems to engage or correct anything.

        If you enjoy eating dog food, be my guest.
        D.T.Long
        Reply Vote

  • Ho-boy, more HD failures!

    As if Seagate doesn't have enough of them.

    EPIC FAIL
    ScorpioBlack
    Reply Vote

  • It's 4TB not 3TB

    "For reference, the maximum capacity of current 3.5-inch hard drives is 3 terabytes"

    Oh no it isn't, currently it's 4TB.

    Here is a nice handy reference check for you:

    http://www.amazon.com/Hitachi-Deskstar-0S03364-Frustration-Free-Packaging/dp/B005TEU2TQ/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1332179267&sr=1-4

    Slack journalism, do your homework.
    Alan Smithie
    Reply Vote

    • A TB here and a TB there...

      pretty soon a TB will be just a rounding error

      ;-)
      D.T.Long
      Reply Vote

    • Also

      1tb is the largest for 2.5 not 750gb. Ref, http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007605%20600030600&IsNodeId=1&name=1TB

      Again, this person writing this article should do some research first :)
      topgun966
      Reply Vote

  • That level of density scares me

    The greater the density, the less capability for error is possible. Additionally, 60TBytes on a single drive is not only a huge amount of data to lose, it's a problematic amount of data to back up. At that rate, there is no removable storage medium that is even possible to back it up on. It would take over 1,100 dual layer Blu-Ray discs to accomplish this. If a drive fails in a RAID array, even if it's a "mere" 10TByte disc with twice the write speed of my trusty GoFlex drive on my desk(60MBytes/sec), it'd still take a little over 24 hours of thrashing the good disc non-stop in order to properly rebuild.

    I'm all for more local storage, but I'd be interested in more ways that we can prevent existing discs from breaking. While I'm at it, I wouldn't mind seeing the resurgence of the 5.25" hard disk - I've got plenty of open slots on my desktop that can hold one.

    Joey
    voyager529
    Reply Vote

    • 5.25 inch hard disks

      Would that be double height? I used to have one of those - a 140MB ESDI monster.
      D.T.Long
      Reply Vote

  • An extra zero?

    "The significance here is that this paves the way to double the storage capacity of current hard drives over the next decade, especially with 3.5-inch drives with space of 60TB or more."

    Just how does doubling the storage capacity manage to take us from 3TB to 60TB drives?
    cHarley1200
    Reply Vote

  • Net Net

    Um, you ask "what opportunities could this advancement in local storage present as more consumers and businesses move to the cloud?" Well, if everyone moved to the cloud-only there would still be about the same requirements for storage. Whether it is local or in the cloud, someone is plugging a disk in somewhere.
    hjenkins1
    Reply Vote

  • Correcting errors is one thing . . .

    I'm sure we all expect to receive accurate information on tech sites, and correcting factual errors in an article is helpful to our community. Personal attacks, however, serve no good purpose.
    preilly2@...
    Reply Vote

    • Fair point, but...

      This piece was a truly sloppy piece of journalism and she got paid to write it. Why should we have to spend our time correcting paid writers who cannot be bothered to do even basic fact checking or who don't have a basic familiarity with the subject matter?

      At some point calling a spade a spade becomes appropriate.
      D.T.Long
      Reply Vote

  • Seagate = Storage Capacities Double and Drives fail twice as fast

    I do not think Seagate has made a reliable drive in the last 5 - 7 years. Stopped using them despite them being a bit cheaper. Too many failures.
    bobiroc
    Reply Vote
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