Wednesday, July 5, 2006
Lubricant-Soaked Nanotubes May Lead to Drastic Storage Boost
Posted by Jason Dunn in "NEWS" @ 01:00 PM
"According to a patent application filed by Seagate, nanotubes soaked with lubricant may lead to drastic increases in hard drive capacity. The application titled "Magnetic recording system with continuous lubrication of recording media", outlines an ingenious system where lubricant is evaporated from nanotubes and then deposited on the magnetic media of the drive. The lubricant will be stored in millions of carbon nanotubes (CNT) held in a reservoir inside the drive chassis. According to the patent, the large surface area of the CNTs can hold a "nearly infinite reservoir of lubricant." In practical terms, the lubricant will run out after around 10 years of usage."
More storage is always a good thing - I'm particularly interested in seeing technology such as this combined with perpendicular storage in smaller hard drives, 2.5" and 1" drives. In a world where 750 GB desktop hard drives are available, I think the real innovation is in the smaller drives.
More storage is always a good thing - I'm particularly interested in seeing technology such as this combined with perpendicular storage in smaller hard drives, 2.5" and 1" drives. In a world where 750 GB desktop hard drives are available, I think the real innovation is in the smaller drives.
