>"Seagate is confident that heating the media using laser (HAMR) is the best solution possible, while Toshiba and Western Digital believe that using microwaves to change coercivity of magnetic disks (MAMR) is more viable for the next several years. Furthermore, Western Digital even uses 'halfway-to-MAMR' energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR) for its latest HDDs. Meanwhile, everyone agrees that HAMR is the best option for the long term.
HAMR requires new heads and immediate transition to glass platters with all-new new coating, whereas MAMR only needs new heads and can continue using aluminum media with a known coating. Even if HAMR offers a higher areal density than MAMR, it is possible to increase platter count to expand the capacity of a MAMR drive to match that of a HAMR-based HDD. There is a catch though: thin MAMR platters will have to rely on a glass substrate."
This is interesting; it seems that we might be halfway between metal and glass hard drives...
Which brings up an interesting thought, phrased as a challenge, for all Physicists out there...
Given a piece of glass, ordinary glass, ordinary glass and no magnetic metal platter, my challenge is:
a) How do you write data to it?
b) How do you read that data back from it?
c) What's the smallest size / depth you can accomplish this at, and why?
d) Does a formula govern c, and if so, what is it?
e) What do you do about imperfections in the glass?
?
We currently have CD's, DVD's and Blu-Ray discs that use lasers to write to chemical mixtures inside of those media.
My challenge is -- can we do it without those chemical compounds, could we use simple pure glass, and if so, how?
?
(Note to Future Self: Work on this in the future... <g>)
HAMR requires new heads and immediate transition to glass platters with all-new new coating, whereas MAMR only needs new heads and can continue using aluminum media with a known coating. Even if HAMR offers a higher areal density than MAMR, it is possible to increase platter count to expand the capacity of a MAMR drive to match that of a HAMR-based HDD. There is a catch though: thin MAMR platters will have to rely on a glass substrate."
This is interesting; it seems that we might be halfway between metal and glass hard drives...
Which brings up an interesting thought, phrased as a challenge, for all Physicists out there...
Given a piece of glass, ordinary glass, ordinary glass and no magnetic metal platter, my challenge is:
a) How do you write data to it?
b) How do you read that data back from it?
c) What's the smallest size / depth you can accomplish this at, and why?
d) Does a formula govern c, and if so, what is it?
e) What do you do about imperfections in the glass?
?
We currently have CD's, DVD's and Blu-Ray discs that use lasers to write to chemical mixtures inside of those media.
My challenge is -- can we do it without those chemical compounds, could we use simple pure glass, and if so, how?
?
(Note to Future Self: Work on this in the future... <g>)