History (1998): IBM Promises 10 Billion Bits Per Square Inch on HDD

The steady increase of about 60% in HDD storage density since 1991 is not likely to abate, if we credit the latest technological advances at IBM’s Almaden Research Center.

Big Blue announced that it had broken the barrier of 10 billion bits of data per square inch.

“With this laboratory demonstration, we’re on track to providing products with 10Gb density by the year 2001,” said Bob Scranton, IBM SSD VP for technology.

More specifically, IBM has attained an areal density of 11.6 billion bits per square inch-with 315,000 bpi and 36,800 tpi – which should permit nearly 6 to 7GB on a 2.5-inch platter and 12 to 13GB on a 3.5-inch magnetic media. A data rate of 14MB/s was reached.

The on-track data was essentially read flawlessly, with an uncorrected rate of less than one error in a billion bits, which in product would be reduced by ECCs to less than one in a trillion, said IBM.

In addition to the advanced GMR read head, a narrow-track thin-film inductive write head, ultra-low-noise cobalt-alloy magnetic media and extended PRML channel electronics were used.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 120 on January 1998 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.