The new hard drive overcomes an obstacle that many feared would be a major roadblock to the further expansion of disk capacity and the overall growth of the storage industry.

The new approach that aligns bits of data vertically rather than horizontally enables Seagate and other drive vendors to further boost the density of drives without increasing the risk of scrambling data.

Momentus 5400.3 drive is a 5,400 rpm drive that operates with 4,200 rpm power efficiency to extend battery life. The company plans to extend its new technology to other notebook drives and 3.5-inch drive for desktop PCs.

Since hard drive was introduced in 1956, bits have been arranged in a flat, horizontal fashion on the spinning platters. To boost capacity, engineers reduced the size of the particles whose magnetic state is what actually remembers data.

But with some drives now topping out at 500 gigabytes, the miniaturization is nearly at its limit. Made any smaller, the particles can begin to interfere with the magnetism of their neighbors. The result is disastrous for data.

By storing bits in a vertical, or perpendicular, arrangement, engineers are able to boost capacity by taking advantage of the real estate that is freed up, thus bump the maximum storage a PC can handle from 120 gigabytes to 160 gigabytes.

"Our transition to perpendicular technology increases our ability to meet the needs of our growing customer base," said Karl Chicca, general manager of Seagate's Personal Storage unit. Enditem

(Agencies)