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Seagate Ships Perpendicular Drive

By BetaNews Staff, BetaNews

January 17, 2006, 3:50 PM

Seagate on Tuesday began shipping its first notebook drive using perpendicular recording, which was first announced last June. By standing bits of data on end, rather than flat on the drive's surface, Seagate has achieved 160GB of storage in a 2.5-inch form factor.

Seagate's Momentus 5400.3 is not cheap, however, with a retail price of $325 USD. A 120GB model runs $240 USD, and a 7,200-RPM version is slated to follow later this year. Hard drives using parallel recording can store about 100 to 120 gigabits per square inch. With the new perpendicular method, drives can store 230 gigabits in the same space.

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By Neoprimal

posted Jan 18, 2006 - 6:21 AM

Like all technology, they're going to milk what they can from the current tech. I think we'll see 500gb, 600, 700, 800 all the way up to 1TB.

I'm betting that by this time 2K7 1TB drives will be around the price of 400gb drives now.

It's going to really suck though - because I can deal with losing 120gb of data...I'd die if I lost 1TB. I have 1tb right now spread out across 4 disks, but I can't use more than 500gb. The rest is for backups. I'd love to have just 1 or 2 physical drives but I'll probably forever have at least 3 drives in my system - OS on one, storage on one and the last one backing up the storage drive and my documents from the OS drive. My friends tell me it's overkill but hey, I'll never have to complain about a dead hard drive.

I'm pretty sure by then I'll be raiding for sure.

Score: 0

By rijp

posted Jan 18, 2006 - 10:20 AM

yeah, there is the problem.. what are you keeping on 1 Terabyte? You said you would die if you lost it? Can you not incrementally backup that drive to smaller bits? Like music on one backup, personal data on another, games on one more, and whatever else you have..

From your post, I am guessing, that part of that 1 Terabyte drive is actually to keep a backup of the other part, which isn't the best of ideas...what if the hard drive crashes? You lost the WHOLE thing not just the part that isn't backed up.

Your friend is correct, it is overkill. 1 Terabyte, just because its there, is just nuts. 400 Gb..even that is a lot. The more storage you have the more storage you need to back it up.

They may make 1 Terabyte drives.. but those are going to be targeted for cheap server use, and cheap long term storage, do inviduals really need this much space?

Score: 0

By Neoprimal

posted Jan 18, 2006 - 6:51 PM

Well consider the following:

In 1995, 850 megebytes was more than enough. We had 14.4k modems and downloading anything but web pages took a while. The advent of gig hard drives came, and we were in awe.
In 1999, 10 gigs was the standard. We had 56k modems and downloading was far better, but still slow. High double digit gig hard drives were in and many people were saying, I'd never use that much space.
2005, 250 gigs was the standard. We have broadband and large files take but minutes to download. Some people can't imagine using 250 gigs, but believe it or not, yes - I do use the space. And I know people who use far more than I do as well. One of my friends has multiple tbs right now, he's been glad for these 400 and 500gb drives....he's a DJ and has a crapload of mixes he's done in high quality. My other friend is a gamer, a REAL gamer not a casual one like myself. I'm not a afraid to say, he's probably owned and owns every game that's out there. He's on 5 400gb drives....
I have virgin music player and so far I've download about 100 gigs of music, with more to come. About 10 of my games have occupied another 50 gigs, and I have more than 10 games (Culprits like World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, etc.). I'm just a casual user and I need the space, imagine enthusiasts? Imagine people who have the money to buy songs from that high quality online music store, if they download the same number of albums that I do, they'll be using roughly 3 times the amount of space I use. Audio and Videophiles need the space. Gamers need the space.

It's not logical to say in general that 1TB is overkill. He ofcourse thinks it is because he steals music and movies and is on a slower broadband connection - he can't THINK of someone using that much space. I can and do. Throughout the year I don't doubt that I'll acquire another 50 or so to 100 gigs of music....with virgin, I pay monthly not per song so there's no limit for me. I have no interest in 'owning' the music - these music companies are all thieves anyway...If I like 1 song from an album, I get the entire album and who knows, grow to like some of the rest Something which was painful to do concerning CDs. If someone recommends an album, I download it...again, something I couldn't/wouldn't do with CDs (Not cheap, I have a good life, and I'd like to keep it that way).
I have a couple of my movie favourites also encoded to my PC so that (yes, lazy here) instead of removing it from my collection to play on my computer, I just double click a file. I have a DVR in my entertainment center, but on occasion I use my PC as a DVR as well, in case I already have 2 shows recording on my actual DVR appliance. Then there are pictures...I am not a picture person, yes I've accum. about 5 gigs of pics. I have a good cam, and I use it - whenever I go out of state or to attractions and such, I fill my 1 gig SD card and when I get home transfer it to my PC. Tell me 10TB is overkill, and for now I can say....hmm, maybe a little (because I can't see myself using THAT much now) But I'm sure that won't be in 2 years or so.

Believe me, there are many uses for data space if you're the type of person to use it. And yes, the point of my original post is that even having a tb drive is not enough, not spacewise but safetywise. Which is again why I'd need 2-3 drives (maybe not all Tb, but 3 regardless). It's how I've kept from actually losing data in 4 years. I've always had 1 drive with my OS and games, 1 drive with my downloaded data and the last drive being the biggest with backups from drive 1 and redundant data from drive 2. It's either that or raid....2 1tb drives, stuff everything on drive 1 and use drive 2 to raid. I don't like that config either way because I love to be able to FORMAT my drive 1 (OS/Games drive) if I have any wierd OS issues that aren't easily fixable.

So yeah...I think some individuals need this much space, and I also think that you'll be seeing TB drives aimed at personal use sooner, much sooner than you think.

Score: 0

By Kompressor

posted Jan 18, 2006 - 3:26 AM

So are we going to see a 1 Terabyte drive soon?

Score: 0

By rijp

posted Jan 18, 2006 - 10:15 AM

Do you need a 1 Terabyte drive? I have trouble filling up 300 gig, and most of that is either duplicated or unwanted crap. 100 gig, should be plenty.. I download all kinds of things between beta, music, games, pictures, and I really think people need to do a better job managing their data, we are pack rats by habit, and that's where all this unneeded garbage comes from.

300 gig, should be sufficient, even for the most hard core users.. If you lost your 1 Terabyte drive, would you have a backup of that content? I doubt it. Therefore, having a 1 Terabyte drive is just crazy.

Score: 0

By ds0934

posted Jan 18, 2006 - 3:40 PM

100 GB won't even come close to storing my media files. Animations and 3D modeling projects make mincemeat of that in less than a day. Backing up to offline media is not an option due to performance lag and need for constant reloading for reuse in other projects. Most data has to be accessible quickly and reliably, hard drives provide the fastest access for the money.

Score: 0

By zridling

posted Jan 18, 2006 - 12:40 PM

[rijp]: Do you need a 1 Terabyte drive? I have trouble filling up 300 gig....

Heck yes! I subscribe to several adult and erotic photography websites and could use an exabyte drive!

Score: 0

By ds0934

posted Jan 18, 2006 - 3:41 PM

Amen!!! Finally! An honest comment.

Score: 0

By mattymee

posted Jan 18, 2006 - 10:23 AM

Corporations that require large amounts of storage. People who want to edit movies in HD, and archive some of their old work. There is a market for 1TB, mainly to high end users right now. But by the time people start buying them chances are they will be using/need the space.

Score: 0

By ds0934

posted Jan 17, 2006 - 10:08 PM

I wonder how the other run for hybrid solid-state/disk storage devices will play out against this? Does anyone know if they're looking to employ this with such technology as well? Anything that increases storage, longevity and reduces cost is obviously good for all of us. It's been awhile since I've read about anything really interesting in the small form-factor storage world.

Score: 0

By citizen420

posted Jan 17, 2006 - 6:18 PM

"Enligt Seagate-talesmannen Mika Hall förväntas perpendikulär inspelning öppna dörren för diskar som rymmer fem gånger mer information än dagens inom de närmaste tre till fem åren"

from idg.se.
Accotding to Seagate spokesman Mika Hall, Perpendicular recording is expected to allow hdd's to have five times the capacity of current harddiscs within the next 3 to 5 years.

thats between 1.5 to 2.5 TB!!!!!!!

i want that:D

Score: 0

By Skyfrog

posted Jan 17, 2006 - 7:17 PM

I remember seeing 1GB drives being advertised in the sales papers and being blown away. I had an 80MB hard drive at the time so 1GB seemed incredible. :)

Score: 0

By citizen420

posted Jan 18, 2006 - 2:32 AM

lol, im not thst old, dut i do remember the 10gig hdds being advertised when i had 2, the problem wsa i could see 1tb hdds in the near future, so i constantly jus bought storage on a need to have basis, currently i have 500 gig total, and i need atleast 3x as mutch:)

WHY cand development happen over night:-/

Waiting sucks.

Flash-back.....MAn i was pissed of at my 225MHz Cirix cpu, THE PAIN of having to wait. And no possibility to watch movies. And windows 95, ahhhhhhhh! or 3.1Ahhhhhhhh! but dos was ok actually:-)

Score: 0

By TurningWorm

edited Jan 17, 2006 - 5:04 PM

OK, I know this is a little OT but can anyone point to a good explanation of the theory behind this technology? I consider myself a pretty bright guy but this completely escapes me. How can you stand data on end on a solid metal disk? Do they mean perpendicular to the rotation of the disk? If so, how does that save space?

Score: 0

By Das mod

posted Jan 17, 2006 - 5:26 PM

on conventional HDDs, the magnetic fields that represent data bits lay flat across the disk surface .... with this new "perpendicular" drives .... those magnetic fields stand upright, thereby, fitting more into a single disk, and altho the disk still has to spin up to access data, since they are so closely together now, ms access times should decrease

Score: 0

By TROGDOR42

posted Jan 17, 2006 - 5:20 PM

An image that explains it fairly well:
http://www.geekzone.co.n...itachiperpendicular.gif

A Flash animation that's quite dumb but gets its point across:
http://www.hitachigst.co...endicularAnimation.html

Score: 1

By Skyfrog

edited Jan 17, 2006 - 5:58 PM

Oh dear lord, it's "Bill" from those cheesy 70's Schoolhouse Rock shorts. I'd forgotten all about those; now the nightmares will start again.

http://litwack.org/wp-co...oads/ImJustaBillOPT.gif

Score: 0

By ker7099

posted Jan 17, 2006 - 5:54 PM

that animation was very cheasy, but like TROGDOR42 is right that it gets it's point across.

Score: 0

By rearden

posted Jan 17, 2006 - 4:36 PM

It's intended as a notebook drive, and many of those are still 5400 RPM for power concerns, so I would expect that played a part as well.

Score: 0

By spiked

posted Jan 17, 2006 - 4:53 PM

I agree that more power (and more heat) would be involved, but I doubt that's really the reason for 5400 to be introduced first. The reality is that 5400 is cheaper to manufacturer and easier to achieve high yields with. Notebook users have largely grown accustomed to smaller drives so Seagate undoubtedly wants to see proof of the demand for larger drives (with larger prices) before committing the manufacturing resources to produce faster versions (with even higher prices). Plus, for the hardcore nerds with cash to burn, this gives Seagate a chance to sell two drives: 5400 now and 7200 later.

Score: 0

By Kramy

edited Jan 17, 2006 - 4:18 PM

Well, it passes over more data per area right?

That means it should *in theory* not require as high speeds to access the same amount of disk data.

Lower RPM would still mean longer access times, but this means it should be able to read long streams of data easier, right?

So probably no performance increase for average tasks, but perhaps some for videoencoding or similar HD intense tasks?

Edit: And perhaps not as much as a 7200RPM drive, but I would certainly expect a boost over another 5400RPM, although I know nothing of how this perpendicular technology actually works.

Score: 0

By giwo

posted Jan 17, 2006 - 4:09 PM

There have been no statements regarding Hard Drive performance from any companies announcing perpendicular drives. That being the case, I would assume there is no notable speed increase.

I believe the idea is to bring storage costs down to a more consumer-friendly level and then focus on speed concerns.

Score: 0

By rijp

posted Jan 17, 2006 - 3:59 PM

So any performance increase? Or is this just for increased storage?

Score: 0

By Galway

posted Jan 18, 2006 - 7:25 AM

More data is packed per square inch, so you can assume that like for like rotation speeds will mean increased data output. The technology says 10 times more data, and so that could mean 10 times faster if there are no other bottlenecks.

Score: 0

By Skyfrog

posted Jan 17, 2006 - 6:00 PM

The more data you pack onto a platter in a given space, the faster the performance. That's why an 80GB drive is lightning fast compared to an 8GB drive even if they are both spinning at the same rpm.

Score: 0

By tubaman

edited Jan 17, 2006 - 4:30 PM

Good question. I see that it is still 5400 RPM, so I'd assume the same read/ write speed. But maybe more data closer together means it could be accessed faster? Those are just my rambling thoughts, but if anyone finds out it would be good to know if there is a performance increase also.
*this was posted at about 4pm... I got distracted and forgot to submit... haha*

Score: 0

By billweh

posted Jan 17, 2006 - 5:07 PM

I don't know if they would still write the data side by side. It might be that even at 5400 RPM, the drive is spinning too fast so they might go back to interleaving again.

That might even be a way for them to handle the 7200 RPM. They'd have to make more than one pass around the disk to get the data, but we'd never notice.

I'm sure there engineers are much more knowledgeable about all this than I am. My level of engineering expertise extends is probably on the level of pressing the on/off button, compared to them...

Score: 0

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