The Ever Shrinking Hard Disk Drive And Its Components: What Are The Challenges?

Over the past 50 years, the recording densities of magnetic hard disk drives have increased by a factor of 210-million times. This has been accomplished by scaling every aspects of the technology associated with the magnetic recording from the magnetic recording head to magnetic recording media to head-media spacing to mechanical and electrical components. This paper describes some of these technological innovations and advances as well as what technologies could further push the areal density boundary