Topic: Sony develops tech for 5X capacity in HDDs

[Cobra951]

I mentioned giant magnetoresistance before as the technology which made a huge increase in HDD storage possible.  That one flew under my radar for a good 10 years.  But this one didn't:  Sony has reportedly developed a hybrid magnetic and optic technology to store 5 times the data in the same HDD physical space as before.  I'm not sure if I am interpreting what I read correctly.  If I am, then these are magnetic drives with a laser as read/write head.  (If I am not, ignore me.)  Multi-TB single drives may be just around the corner, but Sony says that there is no timetable, and that they have no current production plans.

[Pugnate]

There will be much rejoicing in Afghanistan tonight! (Apparently they have large goat pr0n collections)

[sirean_syan]

Not to hijack this thread, but I noticed that memory prices (across the board, RAM, HDD, flash, ect) have dropped a fair bit in the past couple months. I was thinkings there was some breakthrough somewhere recently, but I have no idea what. I doubt this development is it, but I'd be curious is anyone knew.

[scottws]

Yeah I noticed that too.  RAM prices have never been cheaper.  $80 for 2 GB of good-brand DDR2?  Crazy!  I remember paying $200 for 512MB of Corsair PC2700.

[sirean_syan]

I bought two 250gb external hard drives over the summer for a backup project I was doing for my brother and they were something like $200 a piece (maybe $150?). Now, those drives are like $100 a pop and the 1tb drives are only like $300. That's really crazy to me. The drop is strange to me because it's in both magnetic and solid state memory. Those 1gb flash sticks are only like $20 now and it seems like that price just dropped overnight.

[scottws]

I got a internal Samsung 500 GB SATA II drive for like $140.  Yeah, things are getting cheap.  For hard drives though, this is the norm.  It's really unusual to see flash and standard RAM so cheap.

[WindAndConfusion]

Those 1gb flash sticks are only like $20 now and it seems like that price just dropped overnight.

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Flash is cheap right now because demand fell in some crucial markets right after the major manufacturers increased their production capacity. Demand went down and supply went up.

Hard drives aren't especially cheap right now. Sixteen months ago I bought two 320GB HDDs for $110 each, and one month ago I bought a 500GB HDD for $130.

And that new breakthrough by Sony is neither a new breakthrough nor by Sony.

[Antares]

A demonstration of technology is a far step from a workable production model.  Sony appears to have accomplished the latter.

[WindAndConfusion]

Sony does not have a workable production model.

They have an announcement.

[Antares]

Sony itself has no immediate plans to produce the hard drives and has no timetable, but says it will work with hard drive manufacturers to introduce shipping products in the future. [via Nikkei]

I suppose I should have read the whole thing.

[Cobra951]

I think your original point is still valid, though.  Sony pushed the idea into a workable realization.  To help whoever jumps on this with production requires at least that much.

Do I need a disclaimer now?  The original post was meant as a heads-up about the technology.  The origins of the technology and the reliability of the source were not researched or verified.  There.