WD Demos HAMR

WD, a Western Digital company, demonstrated its heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology at the 2013 China (Ningbo) International Forum on Advanced Materials and Commercialization. WD’s VP of technology, Dr. William Cain, gave his presentation, Magnetic HDD Media: Enabling High Density Storage, on a PC powered by a fully enabled WD HAMR 2.5-inch HDD.

“Analysts predict 25 trillion gigabytes of new data will be generated by 2020 [IDC: Worldwide and Regional Public IT cloud Services 2013-2017 Forecast, Aug 2013 (Doc #242464)] and that average household storage needs in the U.S. will require as much as 3.3TB by 2016 [Gartner: Forecast: Consumer Digital Storage Needs: 2010-2016, by Shalini Verma 16 March 2012 (G00232445)],” said Cain. “This tremendous growth in data requires continued increases in storage capacity and performance for the cloud, big data and consumer technologies. WD is focused on HDD innovations that will enable future storage capabilities, and HAMR technology is a key step in the migration path.”

HAMR technology may offer a solution for increasing areal density by magnetically recording data on high-stability media using laser thermal assistance. The technology shrinks data bits in a stable manner by briefly heating the disk surface during magnetic head recording. The method can increase data density by a factor of more than five and ultimately results in storage capacities as great as 4Tb per square inch.

WD is addressing challenges associated with HAMR technology, including

• designing media that manages the increasing complexities of concurrently meeting magnetic,
• thermal and optical requirements;
• laser light path integration; and
• head-disk interface reliability and lifetime.

Cain’s presentation and discussion was held Nov. 13th during the International Symposium on Magneto-electronic Materials and Devices.

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