News Meet ePMR, The New Tech Behind WD's Gold 16TB and 18TB HDDs

Adzls

Commendable
Jun 11, 2020
4
1
1,515
"applying an electrical current to the main pole of the write head during the write operation "
Isn't this the typical way of energising a write coil? How is it suddenly stabalizing?
What's new about this technique that allows this density increase?
Or is this the secret sauce for a later in-depth breakdown.
 

JerryC

Distinguished
Nov 20, 2007
143
9
18,695
"applying an electrical current to the main pole of the write head during the write operation "
Isn't this the typical way of energizing a write coil? How is it suddenly stabilizing?
What's new about this technique that allows this density increase?
Or is this the secret sauce for a later in-depth breakdown.

Well that's the $24,000 question, isn't it? Nobody other than WD and maybe Seagate knows how it is done
 

spongiemaster

Admirable
Dec 12, 2019
2,273
1,277
7,560
"applying an electrical current to the main pole of the write head during the write operation "
Isn't this the typical way of energising a write coil? How is it suddenly stabalizing?

A traditional write head is magnetized by the energized voice coil. These new write heads have a current sent directly down the write heads main pole in addition to the charged coil. This current down the pole heats the platter which allows more bits to be written in a given area. The exact details are unknown because WD hasn't released any. All they're really saying is that this a step towards true MAMR drives.