Over the past decade, solid-state drives (SSDs) have gradually replaced mechanical hard drives in the consumer market due to increased capacities and decreased per-unit storage prices. Mechanical hard drives’ capacity advantage is less pronounced, and unless there’s a significant storage requirement, there’s little reason to choose them over high-capacity SSDs.
Recent research suggests a potential surge in the mechanical hard drive industry, with manufacturers developing capacity upgrade plans. Teams from Seagate and others have designed a method to stack multiple data recording layers. This design increases the per-unit area capacity ratio and allows for faster data access than traditional methods. Its complexity is akin to 3D packaging.
The combination of Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) technology and multi-layer stacking is a new approach aimed at significantly increasing storage capacity. It uses dual nanogranular thin films separated by fracture layers that allow separate magnetic recording based on their respective magnetic fields and temperatures. Layering heat-assisted magnetic recording can increase data storage capacity, and since each layer is independent, it can improve processes like data handling and access.
Each granular layer has its own Curie temperature limit, when the layer transitions from ferromagnetic to paramagnetic properties. Researchers suggest achieving a 120TB capacity from 10 disks is possible. In today’s “big data era,” storage demand is rapidly increasing, especially in artificial intelligence (AI) fields, where these designs will be invaluable.
Multi-layer media devices show the way forward in the storage industry. However, there’s still a lack of related technology research and development, and practical application remains a distant goal.
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