Laser Heat Used to Make HDD Write Transfers Faster

[exfileme]

Researchers have discovered that recording data on a HDD platter using a quick laser burst is much faster than the traditional use of a magnetic field.

Laser Heat Used to Make HDD Write Transfers Faster : Read more

 

[ochentay4]

Nice, bring it on!

 

[ojas]

good, now where's my 1PB RAID 1 array?

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

Goodbye, SSDs

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

Wait... what about read speeds?

 

[dcdc1]

isn't that how minidisc works/worked?

 

[dcdc1]

[citation][nom]dcdc1[/nom]isn't that how minidisc works/worked?[/citation]
ah - didn't read it properly - seems a bit like minidisc but without the magnetic head.

 

[rolflorenz]

800 degrees Celsius O_O
If a write a full disk in one go then I can make a BBQ as well, great news!!! xD
I wonder what would happen if a make a copy of a full RAID, ROFL

 

[virtualban]

will the new drives be resistant to floods and price increases in contrast to all tech trends?

 

[cmartin011]

imagine how HOT a hard drive would become using this tech... at least there would be less of a chance of a head crash i imagine now how would it go about helping reads?

 

[drwho1]

This sounds promising.

I wonder is hard drives have been traditionally rated by rotational speed (5400/5900/7200/10000) RPM's
then, how would they be rated now when/if this technology makes it to the consumer?

Will this laser allow for multiple recordings on hard drives?

What about Disk Defragmenting?

Like some asked: What about read speeds?
Would it boot faster than a hard drive?
Would speed be comparable or better than SSD's?

More importantly:
When this drives make it to the consumer, Will I be able to keep all my body parts?
and... Will my wallet suffer?

 

[w3k3m]

This is nice, but there is a problem: they found out how to write data, but they have no applicable way yet to READ it. They are using a scanning tunneling electron microscope for that and these are room sized devices. So don't get too excited, it will take a long time until we see such devices on shelves.

 

[freggo]

Very interesting. But do I get this right, it will "only" speed up the writing of data, not the reading of course !?
Not that faster write speeds are not appreciated !!

 

[w3k3m]

@freggo

There is no read yet, this technology is still in diapers, basically they were just experimenting with lasers and "reading" the results with ST microscope. It's more just a demonstration, it is way too early to talk about practical application. There are many more problems to be solved.

 

[nikorr]

Cool.

 

[CaedenV]

While this technology would be great for people like me who need sequential throughput, I fail to see how this would help the average person because it will still have the same seek time as other platter-based drives today. Remember, sequential throughput on a HDD is not all that bad (120-150MB/s); it is when things are not sequential that thing go to hell (30-60MB/s).

Also, I find it hard to believe that it would take less power to heat a platter than to aim a small radio at it. Besides, would this not wear out the media having so many localized temperature variations? I mean, it is cool tech, but hard to believe it would work 'as advertised'.

 

[back_by_demand]

Very interesting, all we need now is for the rest of the system to work at that speed, that fast your RAM and CPU would be a bottleneck

 

[nukemaster]

[citation][nom]dcdc1[/nom]ah - didn't read it properly - seems a bit like minidisc but without the magnetic head.[/citation]
Not going to lie, first thing came to mind as well.

This is laser only for writing, while MD used a laser for heat and magnetic to write then read with the laser alone.

Still make me think of MD for sure.

 

[danwat1234]

How does this technology relate to HAMR (Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording)?

 

[willard]

[citation][nom]caedenv[/nom]Remember, sequential throughput on a HDD is not all that bad (120-150MB/s)[/citation]
Only the fastest mechanical drives in the world are that fast, and only when the data is both sequential and at the edge of the platter for maximum rotational velocity on the platter. This is obviously a fairly rare occurrence.

it is when things are not sequential that thing go to hell (30-60MB/s).Also, I find it hard to believe that it would take less power to heat a platter than to aim a small radio at it.

Generating magnetic fields actually requires considerably more power than a picosecond pulse of a laser.

Besides, would this not wear out the media having so many localized temperature variations? I mean, it is cool tech, but hard to believe it would work 'as advertised'.

The amount of energy being delivered is very small. Metal is remarkably elastic, and not all metals are subject to fatigue (getting weaker after repeated small stresses). This will probably be one of the easier problems for them to solve.

 

[mcd023]

wonder how it feels to take an assumed scientific fact that has been believed to be true for over a hundred years and make it do the opposite of what everyone has been saying it would do. Granted, it took a lot of researchers to do it and I don't think that they turned the principle on its head, but they still got it to do the opposite of what was thought. pretty cool.

 

[wiyosaya]

Interesting. Sounds like this has the most promise to increase write speed, but it sounds like the net effect is the same as if data were recorded magnetically. Therefore, it will likely still need to be read magnetically - which I would assume for the time being means that read speeds will not increase.

Also, this article says nothing about commercialization of the technology, and my bet is that it is years off. I hate to say this, but I am not getting my hope up.

 

[jellico]

This is actually somewhat old news. I remember writing a paper on this for one of my graduate courses back in Spring of 2010. The cool thing is that, in addition to the increase data transfer rate, the data density is also increased by nearly a factor of 10! If we can implement this technology in a practical fashion, we would see 100TB drives appear on the market practically overnight.

 

[hannibal]

Well, for me the low power, low heat is more important in HD than pure speed. Speed is nice, but not if there is big heat penalty.
If I need more speed I will chose SSD...
Ofcource if the heat is no issue, this can be guite interesting?

 

[drwho1]

[citation][nom]jellico[/nom]This is actually somewhat old news. I remember writing a paper on this for one of my graduate courses back in Spring of 2010. The cool thing is that, in addition to the increase data transfer rate, the data density is also increased by nearly a factor of 10! If we can implement this technology in a practical fashion, we would see 100TB drives appear on the market practically overnight.[/citation]

OK, I'm going to bed now, wake me up as soon as this drives are on sale....