Every once in a while, when the physical limits of magnetic HDD recording are approached, the hard drive industry experiments with new magnetic recording technologies.
The goal is to increase the maximum storage density of a technology that is, in its very basics, almost 40 years old.
About 20 years ago, the industry believed that traditional horizontal magnetic recording techniques would top out at a density of about 100 Gb/square inch. 15 years ago, Seagate began experimenting with heat-assisted recording technology acquired with Quinta, which promised up to 250 Gb/square inch, but was able to push the boundaries up to 250 Gb/square inch in regular magnetic recording -- until the current perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) arrived in 2006, which is now believed to take the industry just over 1 Tb/ square inch.
Seagate, for example, is working on heat-assisted magnetic recording again, but there may be another opportunity: Grain-based magnetic recording, which apparently allows up to 10 Tb/square inch. In more common terms, this would enable hard drives in the range of up to 50 TB for 3.5-inch models.
According to an article over at X-bit labs, this technology would be "storing each data bit in a single magnetic grain of the thin film of the recording medium, rather than in several grains as in conventional hard drives". Initial test results at the A*Star Data Storage Institute appear to be encouraging and are good enough to be considered for a future magnetic recording type, which could enable the industry to elude, once again, the rather expensive move to heat- or laser-assisted magnetic recording.
My first hard drive was 20MB, and that was somewhat later.
A 50TB drive will have 2 1/2 Billion times the storage that my first 20MB hard drive had, and 10 Billion times the storage that those 5MB hard drives had. And the 50TB hard drive will cost a small fraction of what the 5MB, 10MB, and 20MB hard drives cost. You may not be impressed, but you should be.
My first hard drive was 20MB, and that was somewhat later.
A 50TB drive will have 2 1/2 Billion times the storage that my first 20MB hard drive had, and 10 Billion times the storage that those 5MB hard drives had. And the 50TB hard drive will cost a small fraction of what the 5MB, 10MB, and 20MB hard drives cost. You may not be impressed, but you should be.