X-bit labs

April 2004 Hardware News Overview (page 9)

Category: Editorial

by Andy Yaschenko

[ 04/21/2004 | 09:34 AM ]

Drives

Capacities are growing; speeds are high, while the size is reduced. In March the Hitachi Deskstar 7K400 notched the record-breaking 400GB capacity, while the Fujitsu MAT3xxxNC/NP drive for server applications is only 300GB, but rotates the spindle at 10,000rpm with all the consequences like an average access time of 3msec.

The areal density is growing, too. The Japan-based Alps, a leader in the market of magnetic heads, announced their new version, providing an areal density of 120Gb per sq. inch against today’s 90Gb. This is a potential opportunity, of course, expected to come about no sooner than the next year and only if the platters and other circumstances permit. In ideal, Seagate promises as many as 50 Tb per sq. inch if you heat the platter up with a laser, but again no sooner than the year 2020 or thereabouts.

The data-reading speed is growing along with the areal density, because the angular velocity of the platter remains the same. This growing traffic must be somehow processed. Now Adaptec starts shipping the first of-the-shelf Serial Attached SCSI controller with a peak bandwidth of 4.8GB/s and Fujitsu shows prototypes of its SAS drives with an average bandwidth of 3GB/s. These are low-format devices, by the way, and this is another market tendency. We’ve got used to 2.5” HDDs and the next Travelstar model from Hitachi – the 40GB 4K40 – looks quite familiar.

Smaller models are in fashion now like 1.5-1.8” form-factors: the MicroDrive is so popular nowadays that Hitachi hardly meets the demand. Well, flash is getting more expensive, while hard disk drives are cheapening.

Microsoft, however, seems to have chosen flash. At least, they officially said it in March: M-Systems, a well-known manufacturer of flash drives, will supply its produce. Of course, they won’t be shipping 90GB models like the one they announced along with that declaration, but something like that. That’s a strange choice, if flash has been really preferred to the mechanical HDD. Let’s wait for a clarification.

The calm season ends for the optical drive market. At CeBIT they showcased a lot of 12x models that are going to come to shops in May. Some companies even showed 16x DVD+R/RW drives! 12x models will probably be announced through the second quarter, followed by 16x ones. As for sales, 12x drives will be more popular as they are most optimal. The 16x speed is too close to the physical limit, especially for dual-layer discs, although Philips is ready to offer an etalon design of such a device (16x with support of 8.5GB DVD+R).

Meanwhile, there’s already the next generation of optical drives in the market, at least theoretically. I mean the notorious Blu-Ray technology. Sony is even set to offer the second generation of such devices with support of two-layer 50GB discs, capable of reading BD-ROM, CD and DVD. That’s all very nice, save for the price, starting from $2800. Otherwise, that’s an excellent technology.