From what I read, it would be an improvement in sustained transfer rate, but I think the real benefit would be the increase in bit density. You would be able to cram more bits on the same sized platter, without increasing rotational speed. As usual, a journalist doesn't quite grasp the significance. :-)
So do reduce seek time maybe the strategy should be to increase number of platters, decrease platter diameter, drastically increase the power of the hard drive motor,
Decreasing the platter diameter would decrease seek time, but you would run into the bit density problem. Ditto with increasing the RPM -- it's already as high as 15,000 RPM for server drives. As the article points out, it takes time to flip a bit magnetically, and speeding up the platter just spreads out the bits. However, all of these things are expensive solutions, compared to alternatives.
and dramatically increase the hard drive’s on board cache...or go the route of the hybrid SSD.
I think that's where we should be going, and I'm surprised that we haven't seen more hybrid SSD's. There are a few, but they are limited in cache size, or are a completely new module, like this one:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/01/ocz-revodrive-hybrid-merges-100gb-ssd-with-1tb-hdd-for-499/
However, there are also laptop drives like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148591
They appear to be a significant improvement in performance, but haven't really taken off. If I were replacing a drive in my laptop, I'd use one -- but I'm constrained to the standard offerings in my company's catalog.
SSD has to be implemented carefully: a single channel SSD is pretty slow to write. The good devices organize multiple SSDs into dual, quad, or even octo-channel configurations, in order to be able to sustain the kind of data rate you can currently get with a rotating disk device.
If you are using Windows 7 (and to some extent, Windows Vista), you can implement an SSD cache on your system. Get a fast USB thumbdrive, preferably USB 3.0 (both the device and your system). After formatting, right-click on the drive letter and enable "Ready Boost".
Windows 7 will use the SSD device for short reads. Longer ones will still go to the disk, because it can sustain higher transfer rates. Any writes are written to both the disk and the SSD device, so you can remove the SSD at anytime and your system won't crash. The data on the SSD is also encrypted, so there are no security issues.
If you have an SD card reader built into your laptop, that's an excellent way to use it. Just buy an 8-16G Class 10 memory card, put it in your laptop, and enable ReadyBoost. You can leave it there all the time.
If anyone decides to try this, follow-up and I'll post an explanation of how to use Windows Performance Monitor to see how much data is being cached, and how many of your disk reads are being satisfied by the SSD cache.
Very interesting.
I think the point of a smaller diameter platter and a more powerful motor is to spin the platter from zero up to max RPM instantly. Smaller diameters have less rotational inertia. I believe this affects seek time.
Did you ever do anything with an Altair? I’ve heard their last version was sometimes equipped with a hard drive or two as add-ons in addition to a pair of 8” floppy drives.