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Disk capacity growth rate slowing
The Register ^ | 3rd February 2010 11:14 GMT | Chris Mellor

Posted on 02/03/2010 8:50:40 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach

Hard disk drive capacity growth rates are slowing and two 2.5-inch drive capacity increases are in qualification with drive manufacturers, according to TDK.

The firm is a major hard disk drive head manufacturer and its read/write heads have to match the areal density capabilities of the media they are moving across. In its results presentation for its third fiscal 2010 quarter, it showed a chart (pdf) depicting areal density increases and timescales.

TDK 3Qfy2010 Areal Density chart

TDK product launch schedule

In the 3.5-inch drive class, 500GB/platter drives are shipping now and 640GB/platter (or thereabouts) read/write heads are in qualification with TDK's OEM customers, the drive manufacturers. It anticipates that qualification will finish in the March 2010 to October 2011 period as manufacturers start mass producing 640GB/platter drives, meaning up to 2.56TB 3.5-inch drive capacities.

Four platter 2TB SATA drives have already been announced by Hitachi Data Systems, Seagate and Western Digital. Having an extra 560GB, a 28 per cent increase will be nice, but doesn't look that dramatic when we see what TDK sees in the 2.5-inch drive area.

Here 250GB/platter drives are shipping and TDK has heads in qualification for both 320GB/platter and 375GB/platter. That would enable 640GB and 750GB twin platter 2.5-inch drives.

(Excerpt) Read more at theregister.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: hitech; storage
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To: TChris

750 gig drives for laptops coming.


21 posted on 02/04/2010 8:31:27 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach ( Support Geert Wilders)
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To: gilor

My first was 10 MB, full-height 5 1/4” form factor.


22 posted on 02/04/2010 8:35:13 AM PST by DigitalVideoDude (It's amazing what you can accomplish when you don't care who gets the credit. -Ronald Reagan)
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To: Elderberry
Storage was on cassette audio tapes.

Oh, Gosh, I remember those. Code could be entered via keyboard or keypunch card decks. Storage on tapes.

23 posted on 02/04/2010 8:45:56 AM PST by Still Thinking (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?)
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To: DigitalVideoDude
My first was 10 MB, full-height 5 1/4” form factor.

My first one was actually mounted on an expansion card, in an IBM XT IIRC. Every slot had a card in it, and with the variation in the amount of space available in terms of length at each slot location, the cards could only be put in one way.

Now that was MY first hard drive. I worked in a business where the bookkeeper had the only machine that had a hard drive (there were several dual floppy machines for common use). The thing was 4MB and had it's own box and power cord!

24 posted on 02/04/2010 8:51:31 AM PST by Still Thinking (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

I can remember paying $250 for a 500MB HardDrive at Frys back in the mid 90’s. Now they practically give away 4GB USB ThumbDrives.


25 posted on 02/04/2010 8:51:43 AM PST by ßuddaßudd (7 days - 7 ways Guero >>> with a floating, shifting, ever changing persona.....)
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To: ßuddaßudd

For a long time $3-4/MB was about the going rate, so you were doing pretty good there.


26 posted on 02/04/2010 8:53:39 AM PST by Still Thinking (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?)
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To: Mad Dawgg
Can someone explain why computers aren’t going away from sata (moving parts) hard drives and using instead RAM type (non moving part) Hard Drives?

Price. You can get a 1 TB spinning drive for $85, but the same thing in solid state will cost you almost $4,000. Give it time.

27 posted on 02/04/2010 8:59:15 AM PST by antiRepublicrat
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To: Incorrigible
Four words: Solid State Nano Memory

Uhm, that's 6 words.

28 posted on 02/04/2010 9:01:01 AM PST by Revolting cat! (Let us prey!)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; a fool in paradise
I wish they'd increase the number of columns in the punch cards already!


29 posted on 02/04/2010 9:03:50 AM PST by Revolting cat! (Let us prey!)
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To: gilor
I upgraded from two 5.25" DSDD 360K drives, to a 10MB. Don't ask me how much that cost.

If I had only waited....

30 posted on 02/04/2010 9:05:30 AM PST by AFreeBird
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To: TChris
Are 1-2TB drives just too small?

I know that ours aren't anywhere near full, and 500MB+ drives (usually 2.5" in our rack-mounts) will easily keep us for a very long time.

Depends on what you're storing. A/V is going to be the biggest consumers of disk space. Want to re-rip your CD collection in a lossless format? How about Hi-Def video and Dolby sound for your home theater. I can plug an external USB into a Dish ViP722 DVR and move recorded content over to it; 1~2TB will come in handy.

Any professional (or Prosumer) photogs out there shooting RAW at 15+MP are gonna eat up space real quick too.

People and technology will find a way to eat up the space.

31 posted on 02/04/2010 9:17:59 AM PST by AFreeBird
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To: Revolting cat!
I wish they'd increase the number of columns in the punch cards already!

LOL

!

Laser perf cards!

32 posted on 02/04/2010 9:21:42 AM PST by AFreeBird
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

wtf !!1!

Was $29 on eBay

(might've been a scam, tho)

33 posted on 02/04/2010 9:24:14 AM PST by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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To: martin_fierro

bttt


34 posted on 02/04/2010 9:29:31 AM PST by ConservativeMan55
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To: bt_dooftlook

It was the SYM-1. It had a Hex keypad and led display. 4K memory, 1Mhz 6502 cpu. It was the size of a sheet of notebook paper. It even had the holes for a 3ring binder. I hooked up a keyboard and VT100 monitor and used it to log in to the University mainframe at 300 baud. Man. I was state of the art! Or so I thought back when.


35 posted on 02/04/2010 9:43:08 AM PST by Elderberry
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To: Elderberry
Storage was on cassette audio tapes.

You had casettes?

We had paper tape and thought it was a huge improvement over the stone tablets we started with.



36 posted on 02/04/2010 9:52:24 AM PST by zeugma (Proofread a page a day: http://www.pgdp.net/)
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To: zeugma

When I started coding, all we had was 0s and 1s, and sometimes we didn’t even have the 1s.


37 posted on 02/04/2010 9:54:49 AM PST by dfwgator
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To: dfwgator

Yeah, unary with just zeros is hard. Hash marks are easier to read when you have ones.


38 posted on 02/04/2010 10:15:03 AM PST by Still Thinking (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?)
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To: dfwgator
I thought the 1 was invented before the 0.
39 posted on 02/05/2010 10:47:13 AM PST by AFreeBird
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