pctechguide.com

  • Home
  • Guides
  • Tutorials
  • Articles
  • Reviews
  • Glossary
  • Contact

Hard Disk Perpendicular Recording

In perpendicular recording, the magnetisation of the bit is aligned vertically – or perpendicularly – in relation to the disk drive’s platter. Since the bits do not directly oppose each other, the need for transition packing is significantly reduced. This allows bits to be more closely packed with sharper transition signals, facilitating easier bit detection and error correction. The potential for higher areal density results.

To help understand how perpendicular recording works, consider the bits as small bar magnets. In conventional longitudinal recording, the magnets representing the bits are lined up end-to-end along circular tracks in the plane of the disk. If you consider the highest-density bit pattern of alternating ones and zeros, then the adjacent magnets end up head-to-head (north-pole to north pole) and tail-to-tail (south-pole to south-pole). In this scenario, they want to repel each other, making them unstable against thermal fluctuations. In perpendicular recording, the tiny magnets are standing up and down. Adjacent alternating bits stand with north pole next to south pole; thus, they want to attract each other and are more stable and can be packed more closely.

Perpendicular

Key to being able to make the bits smaller, without superparamagnetism causing them to lose their memory, is the use of a magnetically stronger (higher coercivity) material as the storage medium. This is possible due to the fact that in a perpendicular arrangement the magnetic flux is guided through a magnetically soft (and relatively thick) underlayer underneath the hard magnetic media films (considerably complicating and thickening the total disk structure). This magnetically soft underlayer can be effectively considered a part of the write head, making the write head more efficient, thus making it possible to produce a stronger write field gradient with essentially the same head materials as for longitudinal heads, and therefore allowing for the use of the higher coercivity – and therefore inherently more thermally stable – magnetic storage medium.

By 2005 all of the major hard disk manufacturers were working on PMR technology and the technology was expected to be broadly adopted in products by the end of 2007. Hitachi Global Storage Technologies demonstrated an areal density of 345 Gbits/in2 in laboratory testing in the autumn of that year, expected to bring hard drive areal density half way to the 345 Gbits/in2 mark with a 1 TB 3.5in product in the first half of 2007, and was predicting a 2 TB 3.5in desktop drive by 2009.

Extensions to PMR technology are expected to take hard drive advancements out beyond the next two decades, and eventually allow information densities of up to 100 Tbits/in2

  • Hard disk (hard drive) construction
  • Hard Disk (hard drive) Operation
  • Hard disk (hard drive) format – the tracks and sectors of the hard disk
  • File systems (FAT, FAT8, FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS) explained
  • Hard Disk (Hard Drive) Performance – transfer rates, latency and seek times
  • Hard Disk AV Capability
  • Hard Disk Capacity
  • Hard Disk Capacity Barriers
  • Hard Disk MR Technology
  • Hard Disk GMR Technology
  • Hard Disk Pixie Dust
  • Hard Disk Longitudinal Recording
  • Hard Disk Perpendicular Recording
  • RAID – Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks
  • Hard Disk SMART Drives
  • Hard Disk MicroDrives
  • Hard Disk OAW Technology
  • Hard Disk PLEDM
  • Hard Disk Millipede
  • Guide to Western Digital’s GreenPower hard drive technology
  • Solid state hard drive (SSD) technology guide

Filed Under: Hard Disks

Latest Articles

ADSL Network

This is a three-stage process, as follows: installing the network card Connecting the network cables installing the network card drivers. installing the network card: Note, it's important that you free yourself of static electricity before you handle your network card. You can do this … [Read More...]

A simple PC guide on keeping safe while using public Wi-Fi

Did you know that there is a cyberattack every 39 seconds? You are more likely to be a victim if you are lax about your digital security. This includes being careless about using public Wi-Fi. Connecting to free, public Wi-Fi is second nature to most people. It seems like a splendid idea when … [Read More...]

Hard Disks – What is Serial Storage Architecture?

Today's huge databases and data intensive applications demand incredible amounts of storage, and transferring massive blocks of information requires technology that is robust, reliable and scaleable. Serial Storage Architecture ( SSA) is an IBM-developed interface for … [Read More...]

Gaming Laptop Security Guide: Protecting Your High-End Hardware Investment in 2025

Since Jacob took over PC Tech Guide, we’ve looked at how tech intersects with personal well-being and digital safety. Gaming laptops are now … [Read More...]

20 Cool Creative Commons Photographs About the Future of AI

AI technology is starting to have a huge impact on our lives. The market value for AI is estimated to have been worth $279.22 billion in 2024 and it … [Read More...]

13 Impressive Stats on the Future of AI

AI technology is starting to become much more important in our everyday lives. Many businesses are using it as well. While he has created a lot of … [Read More...]

Graphic Designers on Reddit Share their Views of AI

There are clearly a lot of positive things about AI. However, it is not a good thing for everyone. One of the things that many people are worried … [Read More...]

Redditors Talk About the Impact of AI on Freelance Writers

AI technology has had a huge impact on our lives. A 2023 survey by Pew Research found that 56% of people use AI at least once a day or once a week. … [Read More...]

11 Most Popular Books on Perl Programming

Perl is not the most popular programming language. It has only one million users, compared to 12 million that use Python. However, it has a lot of … [Read More...]

Guides

  • Computer Communications
  • Mobile Computing
  • PC Components
  • PC Data Storage
  • PC Input-Output
  • PC Multimedia
  • Processors (CPUs)

Recent Posts

2004 Site Updates

Date Details of Updates 21Nov '04 Tutorials: New tutorials added: - How to maintain your hard disk drive - How to schedule a program … [Read More...]

TheTorntv V10 Ads Removal

The viruses and those internet parasites are gaining population and the usual question of the users will be about protection, capabilities and the … [Read More...]

Clean Booting

Click Start followed by Run. Type msconfig in the Open box, and then click OK. On the General tab, select Selective Startup, and then clear … [Read More...]

[footer_backtotop]

Copyright © 2025 About | Privacy | Contact Information | Wrtie For Us | Disclaimer | Copyright License | Authors