Heat-assisted magnetic recording: Difference between revisions
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Coercivity happens to be temperature dependent. If the temperature rises then the coercivity would be lower. HAMR uses this physical behavior to solve the problem. In HAMR, a small [[laser]] is used to temporarily [[spot-heat]] the tiny area being written to at any given time. When the temperature of the area being written is raised in this way above the [[Curie temperature]], the magnetic medium effectively loses much of its coercivity, so a realistically achievable magnetic write field can write data to the medium. As only a tiny part of the disk is heated at a time, the heated part cools very quickly, and comparatively little power is needed. |
Coercivity happens to be temperature dependent. If the temperature rises then the coercivity would be lower. HAMR uses this physical behavior to solve the problem. In HAMR, a small [[laser]] is used to temporarily [[spot-heat]] the tiny area being written to at any given time. When the temperature of the area being written is raised in this way above the [[Curie temperature]], the magnetic medium effectively loses much of its coercivity, so a realistically achievable magnetic write field can write data to the medium. As only a tiny part of the disk is heated at a time, the heated part cools very quickly, and comparatively little power is needed. |
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HAMR could eventually increase the limit of magnetic recording by more than a factor of 100. This could result in storage capacities as great as 50 terabits per square inch. Running costs are not expected to differ significantly from non-HAMR drives, since the laser only uses a few tens of [[milliwatt]]s (around 1% of the common 5 to 12 watts in active use of large 3.5 inch HDDs).<ref name="CW">{{cite web |url=http://www.computerworld.com/article/2485341/data-center/seagate--tdk-show-off-hamr-to-jam-more-data-into-hard-drives.html |title=Seagate, TDK show off HAMR to jam more data into hard drives |author=Stephen Lawson |date=1 October 2013 |work=Computerworld |access-date=30 January 2015}}</ref> It competes with technologies such as [[Shingled magnetic recording|SMR]]. |
HAMR could eventually increase the limit of magnetic recording by more than a factor of 100{{citation needed|reason=this is a big claim|date=August 2015}}. This could result in storage capacities as great as 50 terabits per square inch. Running costs are not expected to differ significantly from non-HAMR drives, since the laser only uses a few tens of [[milliwatt]]s (around 1% of the common 5 to 12 watts in active use of large 3.5 inch HDDs).<ref name="CW">{{cite web |url=http://www.computerworld.com/article/2485341/data-center/seagate--tdk-show-off-hamr-to-jam-more-data-into-hard-drives.html |title=Seagate, TDK show off HAMR to jam more data into hard drives |author=Stephen Lawson |date=1 October 2013 |work=Computerworld |access-date=30 January 2015}}</ref> It competes with technologies such as [[Shingled magnetic recording|SMR]]. |
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Industry observer [[International Data Corporation|IDC]] stated in 2013 that ""The technology is very, very difficult, and there has been a lot of skepticism if it will ever make it into commercial products", with opinions generally that HAMR is unlikely to be commercially available before 2017.<ref name="CW" /> Seagate commented that the challenges include "attaching and aligning a [[semiconductor diode laser]] to an HDD write head and implementing [[near-field optics]] to deliver the heat", along with the scale of use which is far greater than previous near-field optic uses.<ref name="CW"/> |
Industry observer [[International Data Corporation|IDC]] stated in 2013 that ""The technology is very, very difficult, and there has been a lot of skepticism if it will ever make it into commercial products", with opinions generally that HAMR is unlikely to be commercially available before 2017.<ref name="CW" /> Seagate commented that the challenges include "attaching and aligning a [[semiconductor diode laser]] to an HDD write head and implementing [[near-field optics]] to deliver the heat", along with the scale of use which is far greater than previous near-field optic uses.<ref name="CW"/> |
Revision as of 19:28, 27 August 2015
Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) is a magnetic storage technology for hard drives in which a small laser is used to heat the part of the disk that is being written to. The heat changes the magnetic properties (its "coercivity") of the disk for a short time, reducing or removing the superparamagnetic effect while writing takes place. This magnetic effect sets a limit on the areal density of magnetic recording (how much data can be stored in a given area of a disk). The effect of HAMR is to allow writing on a much smaller scale than before, greatly increasing the amount of data that can be held on a standard disk platter.[1][2]
The technology was initially seen as extremely difficult to achieve, with doubts expressed about its feasibility. As of 2014, no hard disks using HAMR are currently on the market, but HAMR is in an advanced state of development with demonstration drives produced by companies such as Seagate. A spokesperson for TDK, who has demonstrated read/write heads supporting HAMR, stated in October 2014 that the technology could appear in commercial hard drives by late 2015 to early 2016,[3] and in December 2014 Seagate stated that it expected to produce working prototype drives during 2015 with commercial production anticipated in 2016.[4]
Overview
There have been a series of technologies developed to allow hard drives to increase in capacity with little effect on cost; one of the latest is perpendicular recording. To go beyond the limits of perpendicular recording, new technologies are being developed, including helium-filled drives, shingled magnetic recording (SMR), as well as heat-assisted magnetic recording ("HAMR").
The limitation of perpendicular recording is often characterised by the competing requirements of Readability, Writeability and Stability commonly known as the Magnetic Recording Trilemma. HAMR is one technique proposed to break the trilemma and produce a workable solution. The problem is that to store data reliably for very small bit sizes the magnetic medium must be made of a material with a very high coercivity. At increasing areal densities, the size occupied by one bit is so small, and the coercivity required becomes so high, that the magnetic field able to be created for writing data cannot be made strong enough to permanently affect the data (because it is not possible to produce a more powerful magnetic field in the smaller space available using existing methods). In effect, a point exists at which it becomes impractical or impossible to make a working disk drive because magnetic writing activity is no longer viable.
Coercivity happens to be temperature dependent. If the temperature rises then the coercivity would be lower. HAMR uses this physical behavior to solve the problem. In HAMR, a small laser is used to temporarily spot-heat the tiny area being written to at any given time. When the temperature of the area being written is raised in this way above the Curie temperature, the magnetic medium effectively loses much of its coercivity, so a realistically achievable magnetic write field can write data to the medium. As only a tiny part of the disk is heated at a time, the heated part cools very quickly, and comparatively little power is needed.
HAMR could eventually increase the limit of magnetic recording by more than a factor of 100[citation needed]. This could result in storage capacities as great as 50 terabits per square inch. Running costs are not expected to differ significantly from non-HAMR drives, since the laser only uses a few tens of milliwatts (around 1% of the common 5 to 12 watts in active use of large 3.5 inch HDDs).[5] It competes with technologies such as SMR.
Industry observer IDC stated in 2013 that ""The technology is very, very difficult, and there has been a lot of skepticism if it will ever make it into commercial products", with opinions generally that HAMR is unlikely to be commercially available before 2017.[5] Seagate commented that the challenges include "attaching and aligning a semiconductor diode laser to an HDD write head and implementing near-field optics to deliver the heat", along with the scale of use which is far greater than previous near-field optic uses.[5]
History
- In 1954, engineers of PL Corp working for RCA filed a patent which described the basic principle of using heat in conjunction with a magnetic field to record data.[6] This was followed by many other patents in this area with the initial focus on tape storage.
- In the 1980s, a class of mass storage device called the magneto-optical drive became commercially available which used essentially the same technique for writing data to a disk. One advantage of magneto-optic recording over purely magnetic storage at that time was that the bit size was defined by the size of the focused laser spot rather than the magnetic field. In 1988, a 5.25-inch magneto-optic disk could hold 650 megabytes of data with a roadmap to several gigabytes; a single 5.25" magnetic disk had a capacity of around 100 megabytes.[7]
- In late 1992, Sony introduced MiniDisc, a music recording and playback format intended to replace audio cassettes. Recordable MiniDiscs used heat-assisted magnetic recording but the discs were read optically via the Faraday effect.
- 2006 - Fujitsu demonstrates HAMR.[8]
- As of 2007, Seagate believed it could produce 300 terabit (37.5 terabyte) Hard disk drives using HAMR technology.[9] Some news sites erroneously reported that Seagate would launch a 300 TB HDD by 2010. Seagate responded to this news stating that 50 terabit per-square-inch density is well past the 2010 timeframe and that this may also involve a combination of Bit Patterned Media.[10]
- In early 2009 Seagate achieved 250 Gb per square inch using HAMR. This was half of the density achieved via perpendicular recording at that time.[11]
- Hard disk technology progressed rapidly and as of January 2012, desktop hard disk drives typically had a capacity of 500 to 2000 gigabytes, while the largest-capacity drives were 4 terabytes.[12] It was recognised as early as 2000 [13] that the then current technology for hard disk drives would have limitations and that heat-assisted recording was one option to extend the storage capacity.
- In March 2012 Seagate became the first hard drive maker to achieve the milestone storage density of 1 terabit per square inch using HAMR technology.[14]
- In October 2012 TDK announced that they had reached a storage density of 1.5 terabit per square inch, using HAMR.[15] This corresponds to 2TB per platter in a 3.5" drive.
- November 2013 - Western Digital demonstrates a working HAMR drive,[16] although not yet ready for commercial sales, and Seagate state they expect to begins selling HAMR based drives around 2016.[17]
- In May 2014, Seagate said they planned to produce low quantities of 6 to 10TB capacity hard disks in the "near future", but that this would require "a lot of technical investment as you know, it’s also a lot of test investment". Though Seagate has not stated that the new hard disks would use HAMR, bit-tech.net speculates that they will.[18] Seagate started shipping 8TB drives around July 2014, but without saying how that capacity was reached; extremetech.com speculates that shingled magnetic recording was used rather than HAMR.[19]
- At the Intermag 2015 Conference in Beijing, China, from May 11 to May 15 Seagate reported HAMR recording using a plasmonic near field transducer and high anisotropy granular FePt media at an areal density of 1.402 Tb/in².[20]
- In October 2014, TDK, who supply hard drive components to the major hard drive manufacturers, stated that HAMR drives up to around 15TB would probably start to become available by 2016,[21] and that the results from a prototype 10,000 rpm Seagate hard drive with a TDK HAMR head suggested that the standard 5 year durability required by enterprise customers was also achievable.[1]
See also
References
- ^ a b Tom Coughlin (14 October 2014). "The Attraction Of Magnetics". Forbes. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
- ^ "Data Storage evolution with 15TB and 50TB hard drives". StorageServers. 17 October 2014. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
- ^ "TDK: HAMR technology could enable 15TB HDDs already in 2015". kitguru.net. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
- ^ "Seagate to release 10TB hard disk drive next year". kitguru.net. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
- ^ a b c Stephen Lawson (1 October 2013). "Seagate, TDK show off HAMR to jam more data into hard drives". Computerworld. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
- ^ US patent 2915594, BURNS JR., LESLIE L. & KEIZER, EUGENE O., "Magnetic Recording System", published 1959-12-01, assigned to RADIO CORPORATION OF AMERICA
- ^ "ST-41200N". seagate.com. Retrieved 30 January 2015. [dead link]
- ^ "Seagate hits 1 terabit per square inch, 60TB hard drives on their way". ExtremeTech. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
- ^ "Inside Seagate's R&D Labs". WIRED. 2007. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
- ^ "300 teraBITS is not 300TB! And 3TB isn't 300TB!". dvhardware.net. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
- ^ "Laser-Heated Hard Drives Could Break Data Density Barrier". ieee.org. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
- ^ "Seagate Is The First Manufacturer To Break The Capacity Ceiling With A New 4TB GoFlex Desk Drive". seagate.com. 7 September 2011. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
- ^ Kryder, M.H., "Magnetic recording beyond the superparamagnetic limit," Magnetics Conference, 2000. INTERMAG 2000 Digest of Technical Papers. 2000 IEEE International , vol., no., pp. 575, 4–8 April 2005 doi:10.1109/INTMAG.2000.872350
- ^ Seagate Reaches 1 Terabit Per Square Inch Milestone In Hard Drive Storage With New Technology Demonstration
- ^ "[CEATEC] TDK Claims HDD Areal Density Record". Nikkei Technology Online. 2 October 2013. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
- ^ "Western Digital Demos World's First Hard Drive with HAMR Technology - X-bit labs". xbitlabs.com. 13 November 2013. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
- ^ Bill Oliver. "WD Demos Future HDD Storage Tech: 60TB Hard Drives". Tom's IT Pro. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
- ^ "Seagate hints at 8TB, 10TB hard drive launch plans". bit-tech. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
- ^ "Seagate starts shipping 8TB hard drives, with 10TB and HAMR on the horizon". ExtremeTech. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
- ^ High Density Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording Media and Advanced Characterization – Progress and Challenges
- ^ Alexander. "TDK promises 15 TB hard drives next year". hitechreview.com. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
External links