[Kal-EL]

Hard Rectangular Drive Could be the Hard Disk Answer to SSDs
A company called DataSlide has decided its not time for mechanical disk drives also known as hard disk drives (HDD) to roll over and die with SSDs beating them in just about every aspect other than price. The key aspect of the new technology is that it does not require the data platter to be spun like conventional hard disk drives do. For a start this provides savings in power consumption and due to the use of magnetic recording media as found in hard disk drives should allow the hard rectanguar drive (HRD) to be cheaper than an SSD or at least provide significantly more usable space for your money. A diagram explaining the technology and the manufacturers details and specifications follow.

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[Jeffro64]

Well... thats interesting. Wonder how fast they'll really be and the cost.

[DrNip]

Yep I was lookin at dis earlier today when you posted dis.

[punx223]

the key like im sure bill will also agree with here... is that its not the throughput or bandwidth of the drive but the access time taht makes the biggest difference.... lets face it... .1 ms access time vs 18ms is ahuge jump when your grabbing large amounts of data

[Neuromancer]

I was reading this the other day and did not see the benefit then, but this article made me think of something else.

Why don't they make a HDD with less moving parts? Instead of having one or two heads on a movable arm. Have a fixed arm with heads along the entire length of it. Less moving parts, and by bracing the arm on the spindle, you will not have problems wit hthe heads hitting the platters.

Now, it would not be simple, I am not sure exactly how HDD tech works. For instance does spindle speed vary on hdds so they can pack the same density of data across the entire platter? Would thios mean needing heads that can read data at different rates across the platter? Or would they just have to design variable density platters? (Or do they already... there is a big drop in STRs as one gets closer to the center of a rotational disk, perhpas storage density is the reason why).

That kind of tech would eliminate the need to develop new mechanical storage for another few years, eliminate more moving parts, but would require more "heads" so costs should stay close to modern architecture.

[punx223]

Originally Posted by Neuromancer

I was reading this the other day and did not see the benefit then, but this article made me think of something else.

Why don't they make a HDD with less moving parts? Instead of having one or two heads on a movable arm. Have a fixed arm with heads along the entire length of it. Less moving parts, and by bracing the arm on the spindle, you will not have problems wit hthe heads hitting the platters.

Now, it would not be simple, I am not sure exactly how HDD tech works. For instance does spindle speed vary on hdds so they can pack the same density of data across the entire platter? Would thios mean needing heads that can read data at different rates across the platter? Or would they just have to design variable density platters? (Or do they already... there is a big drop in STRs as one gets closer to the center of a rotational disk, perhpas storage density is the reason why).

That kind of tech would eliminate the need to develop new mechanical storage for another few years, eliminate more moving parts, but would require more "heads" so costs should stay close to modern architecture.

I understand your way of thinking and agree with it, but you must realize the cost of such implimentations would probably drive up costs considerably, then you kinda gotta figure why did they bother?

[Kal-EL]

They technology out there that could blow storage device performance to the moon. Its always a matter of r&d funds, marekt palpability, and how long they can rape us at the lowest manufacturing cost to them.