Fifty Years of Disk Drives – And the Exciting Road Ahead by Mark Kryder, Seagate Technology

Magnetic disk drives have advanced 65 million fold in density, since their introduction in 1956. Along the way there have been numerous innovations. Most of these changes occurred one at a time and generally affected only one component in the drive. Currently, however, the industry is in the midst of a change from longitudinal to perpendicular recording, which requires changes to almost all components of the disk drive recording system: heads, media, channels, servos and head-disk interface. This change is being forced by the fact that longitudinal recording is rapidly approaching the super-paramagnetic limit; however, perpendicular recording is seen as providing only a factor of 5-7 in areal density, before it, too, hits the super-paramagnetic limit. To go further, new technologies are needed. Currently two approaches are being pursued: heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) and bit patterned media (BPM) recording. Ultimately, by combining these technologies, a density of 50-100 Tbpsi could theoretically be achieved. In this talk, the author will first discuss the history of the disk drive, point out some of the challenges of perpendicular recording and then discuss the status and future prospects for HAMR and BPM technologies.