A Perspective on the Future of Hard Disk Drive (HDD) Technology

The hard disk drive has proved as pivotal as the printing press in terms of its impact on human society. This paper examines both the history of and the prospects for the technology supporting these remarkable devices. Certainly for the next few years, conventional magnetic recording will continue its advance and provide ever higher capacities. There are several new technology features such as perpendicular recording and secondary actuators that are only now being introduced and which will drive further increases in a real density as they are refined and brought to maturity. However conventional magnetic recording appears limited to about 1 Tbit/in
²
. Beyond this density, exciting new approaches such as heat-assisted magnetic recording or patterned magnetic media will be brought to bear