Toshiba Working on Technology for 600 TB HDDs

One of the most recent methods of storing data on magnetic platters has yet to persuade the HDD manufacturing community that it is a worthwhile investment.

Toshiba took some time out of its schedule recently to reveal some things about HAMR and what its plans for it are, if any.

HAMR stands for heat-assisted magnetic recording and it is actually one of Seagate's inventions, revealed back in March (2012).

Capable of cramming up to 1 Tb of data per square inch, it opens the possibility of 60 TB HDDs.

Unfortunately, even with prototypes already working, it may still be years before HAMR becomes viable for mass production.

That said, Toshiba has its doubts as to whether or not HAMR will actually catch on, and not just because HAMR is a vendor's proprietary term.

For the technology to be dubbed TAMR (thermal-assisted magnetic recording) is very likely, the corporation said, assuming, again, that another magnetic system won't win out instead.

Verily, Toshiba is working on some magnetic recording technologies of its own, in concert with TDK and Showa Denko KK.

Bit patterned media is one example and promises to offer 1-3 Tb per square inch areal density. Two dimensional magnetic recording is another, TDMR for short, with 10 Tb per square inch potential.

There is no way to know when either of those will become available, which is a shame. TDMR sounds like it might lead to 600 TB HDDs, which would be no small accomplishment.

“Thermal-assisted magnetic recording is just one candidate. We are also working with other energy-assist technologies as well as discrete track (DTR) and bit pattern media for the possibility of future integration into HDDs,” said Joel Hagberg, vice president of marketing at storage products business unit of Toshiba America Electronic Components.

“There are a number of complex technology development and manufacturing issues which need to be addressed to approach the 10Tb/inch2 level areal density. It is difficult to speculate when the challenges may be overcome and enable such significant achievements in manufacturing technology.”