IBM's Nanotech Drive Research

cfanjul writes: "IBM seems to be helping nanotech's slow march to end products with magnetic particles that can be made into a storage device with ten times the density of some of today's drives."

Re:It's all in the keys

> Where everyone walks around with a wristwatch size computer weighing 2 oz. capable of connecting to the global pervasive
> network wirelessly, with a bazillion byte hard disk, 1 TerraHertz (THz) processor, but still has ....
> a keyboard that weighs 2 LBS, and is larger than my arm!

Nah, man. You're missing the point. Once we get these babies cranked up, they'll be giving YOU orders. Then all we have to do is hook a keyboard onto you, and you'll be fully configured to do the bidding of your new overlord and master.

(Wristwatch-sized e-brain, upon hearing of the latest wetware in human peripherals:) "Hmmm. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things..."

DVDs

What's funny about the above comment is that IBM actually advertised that their new 75Gig HD can store "up to 18 DVD movies" [ibm.com].

Nanotech drives? This could be bad.

I hope if IBM keeps on using these nanotech drives that they at least give them a nice orange color. I keep on losing all my nanotech drives either in my pants pocket or in the couch or something. Please, for all of us that lose things, keep on making drives with conventional technology so they can be standard sized. I don't want to have to reach for my microscope to install a nanotech drive.
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Re:x-late into hours of mp3?

These would probably fit:

• Little River Band
• Little Richard
• Tiny Tim
• Little Steven

News Direct From IBM Research

News Release [ibm.com] direct from the IBM Research server. Notice they hope to get down to a single magnetic grain eventually, for a density increase of 1,000,000 rather than the mere 100 which this 10-times-smaller allows.

Re:Nanotech drives? This could be bad.

I can see it now, some marketing coke-head accidentally losing the company web site.

"Hey, Larry's snorted the new portal again! Quick, where are those the needle nose pliers?"

Early storage device development

Although I'm putting it on my radar, I think that a little skepticism is in order. Remember bacteriorhodopsin memory devices? Probably not. They came along a few years ago as a memory chip that could store huge amounts of memory in a 3d bio-organic array. Problem was (as I recall) that they couldn't make the laser accurate enough to read it at useable densities.

Anyway, my point is, we see alot more new technology storage devices in development than we actually see come to market. Its a little like drug design (a field I'm familiar with), where only a very small percentage of potential drugs actually make it to market.


-- Moondog

x-late into hours of mp3?

[humor]
Where is CmdrTaco's translation from storage space into hours of mp3? I depend on this information to plan my future music library! When will it reach the point that you can fit the music equivilent of the library-of-congress onto a single storage device?
[/humor]

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My predictions

I predict this will put IBM out of business. The reasoning is very simple: small computers aren't impressive.

My company just bought a huge HP server. It's roomy enough to sit seven for dinner, muliple redundant power supplies, a 6 disk RAID system, ad nauseum. It's very impressive to look at. Of course, I could build a system to do the same thing at a fraction of the cost, but nobody would buy it because it's small, and doesn't Look Cool.

That's the hidden thing that many companies don't realize. Why did Intel start making CPU *cartridges*? Simple - a small 2x2 inch slab of silicon looks pathetic. "You paid $800 for *THAT*? Ahahahahaha!" They say. Now, you go and show them a stylish cartridge with a cool hologram on the side and all of the sudden "ooh, ahh!" and they want one too.

Nanotech is doomed.. it's too small. =)

Same info is on news.com

and you don't even have to log in.

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-1575458.html? tag=st.ne.1002.bgif.1003-200-1575458 [cnet.com]

Re:x-late into hours of mp3?

Don't be dumb. We're talking about nanotech here, so obviously you could only store small songs. Duh.

Re:IBM stuff in all hard drives..

The heads are a definitely an important product for IBM. And yes, you can find them in other vendor's products. As for the hardest part to make, perhaps, but there is another piece that is just as tough. The flex cable.

Flex cable is the ribbon that connects the actuator to the electronics. Sounds easy, but you have to remember that this thing is moving (flexing) constantly. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, thousands and millions of times. It takes some serious physics to design these parts, while minimizing the costs. Constant movement inside a little oven, and you have to design these things to cost you pennies. Not easy.

These are just two parts. What else is tough to make and requires significant engineering?

• Platters which have to be ground super smooth and coated with the magnetic material. The slightest bump will cause all kinds of bad things to happen when the head contacts it.
• The channel, which is essentially the A/D converter that takes the signal from the head. This is a big piece of R&D, and the specifics are highly guarded between HDD companies.
• The interface code - controls how the drive interacts with the rest of the world. IDE, SCSI, FC-AL, etc. and of course it has to be tuned to handle the cases where the host adapter companies got the interface wrong.
• the motor
• Servo code to control the motor and the actuator. Handles the basics like seeking, and also the more advanced things like load/unload.
• ESD concerns. The heads are extremely sensitive to static electricity. The electronics are too, but not to the same degree.
• Electronic board layout. This is a lot of tradeoffs to cut cost.
• Power and heat concerns. The attention that these two items get is psychotic. The drives today are very efficient machines.
• Test. Especially when working with the newer interfaces, newer heads (ie. GMR), etc. Lots of work here. The absolutely worst thing a drive can do is return incorrect data and declare it to be correct. Slightly less severe than this is if the drive explodes in a giant fireball. (At least then you know the data is bad.)

This is just what I can come up with off the top of my head. The HDD world is a great mix of software and hardware (and some really genius R&D people). The cost to enter this market is absolutely enormous. And to remain in the lead requires a constant investment.