An article in EE Times reposts on developments that could double the storage capacity of perpendicular hard drives within the next two years. Called 'Disk Track' media, the new approach is to add a magnetic 'path' for the recording head to follow in its search to get the stored information.

This is one way round the perennial problem of trying to increase the recording density of disk media; which is how to define better the separation between the bits of information that can be stored on the platter. If the bits of information are too close together, laterally as well as longitudinally, it may not be possible for the read/write head to see where one ends and the next starts. For the future there are technological developments that will have discreet marks on the disk that will enable the read/write heads to place data more accurately (so-called 'Bit-patterned' media), but the engineering feat needed to achieve this to production level is said to be several years away.

Getting 'Disk Track' media to work is felt to be easier to achieve, and therefore could be available in a finished drive specification in a couple of years, but the engineers at Hitachi are not thoroughly convinced that it is worthy of investment. This is mainly because of the modest doubling in recording density, whereas the increase given by the 'bit-patterned' approach should yield significantly higher capacities.

You can read the full article here...