Hitachi's New Storage Technology Promises 10X More Space

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Hitachi's new 'Perpendicular Storage' promises to save enough room on existing hard disks to store 10 times the data! How do they do it? Well, apparently the data bits in current hard disks lay flat on the surface of the disk. With the current data density increase (in line with Moore's Law), the bits are so closely packed that they end up influencing each other's magnetic orientation - leading to data corruption.

Hitachi came up with this radical new idea to have the bits standing instead of lying on the disk. The result? Less crowding of the bits, more space available for more space (aka higher capacity) and happier bits. Now if only they could have multiple levels for the standing bits, kinda like city apartments ...

Follow this link to watch a flash video of the new technology. The soundtrack is interesting. I couldn't ascertain if the domain name is owned by Hitachi though, if you have any idea on that, do leave a comment.