Hitachi Promises Big Things for Hard Drives

by David Kender
Published on Oct 15, 2007 10:09 AM



October 15, 2007 – A storage breakthrough may soon make it possible to record an entire days of video onto your camcorder. Today, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies announced that they have developed the world’s smallest read-head for hard disk drives. This size would allow them to create storage drives up to 4TB for desktop computers, quadruple the current capacity.

"Hitachi continues to invest in deep research for the advancement of hard disk drives as we believe there is no other technology capable of providing the hard drive's high-capacity, low-cost value for the foreseeable future," stated Hiroaki Odawara, Research Director, Storage Technology Research Center, Central Research Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd."

The research, which is to be presented at 8th Perpendicular Magnetic Recording Conference in Tokyo this week, has not been announced for any specific products yet, but the potential for all digital media storage is enormous. Hard disk drive (HDD) camcorders are becoming a leading format in camcorders, surpassing DVDs due to their capacities and inherent simplicity. Currently, HDD capacities average about 30-40GB, with some as high as 60GB. New technologies, such as today’s announcement from Hitachi, promise bigger and better storage solutions down the road.

For the complete press release, go here.