Question about the capacity of hard drives

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In 1998 a big HD was about 8GB. By 2001 drives the same physical size held
80GB--10 times as much. My latest HD is actually slightly smaller in
footprint, but holds 200GB. How do they manage to keep doing that? Isn't
there a hard limit to the amount of data that can be held on a spinning
disc?

Thanks,

Norm Strong
 
The short answer?
All drives have 1 or more platters of aluminum inside them wuth read and
write heads on an arm. Looks like a funky record player.

Regardless of how we partition or format them all hard drives have:
tracks - cocentric circles on the platter
Sectors- the physical sections that each track is cut into.
All sectors are 512 bytes of logical storage.

As technology has progressed, we have been able to reliably manufacture
drives with physically smaller readable sectors.

Smaller sectors = more sectors = more capacity.

Some drives may have more platters.

I found anywhere from one to eight platters in harddrives. Both sides of the
platter get used.(and they shine with amirror finish ike you wouldn't
believe)
More physical surface = more sectors = more storage
So there is another variable in the storage capacity puzzle.

Where does it end?

I guess nowhere.

Data storage is a vital component in computing, so it will keep being
developed as far as it can go.



--
Manny Borges
MCSE NT4-2003 (+ Security)
MCT, Certified Cheese Master

There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who do understand binary
and those who don't.
 
I'm sure at some point they will get to the limits of mechanical drives. But
as mechanicals and manufacturing processes get better and better you'll see
drives get bigger with the same physical footprint. Just like car engines
get faster and more fuel efficient with fewer cylinders and smaller
displacements.
 
In 1998 a big HD was about 8GB. By 2001 drives the same physical
size held 80GB--10 times as much. My latest HD is actually slightly
smaller in footprint, but holds 200GB. How do they manage to keep
doing that?
Click to expand...


They make things smaller. They put bits closer together. If you want more
details, you should be able to find them on the web sites of drive
manufacturers.

Isn't there a hard limit to the amount of data that can
be held on a spinning disc?
Click to expand...


Of course there is a physical limit to how much you can store on a disk of a
particular size. But we are nowhere near that limit yet.
 
In 1998 a big HD was about 8GB. By 2001 drives the same physical size held
80GB--10 times as much. My latest HD is actually slightly smaller in
footprint, but holds 200GB. How do they manage to keep doing that? Isn't
there a hard limit to the amount of data that can be held on a spinning
disc?
Click to expand...

There have been any number of breakthroughs in hard disk design over
the last 20 years or so. The latest is recording bits in a vertical
alignment rather than horizontal, which allows *many* more bits per
unit of area.

A disk drive held in your hand looks just about exactly like it did
twenty years ago, but holds thousands of times more data. There are
now 500GB drives around, terabyte drives will exist before too
terribly much longer.

I don't know of any component of computers that have changed as much
as disks over the years. Thousands of times the capacity for a
fraction of the money.
 
In 1998 a big HD was about 8GB. By 2001 drives the same physical size held
80GB--10 times as much. My latest HD is actually slightly smaller in
footprint, but holds 200GB. How do they manage to keep doing that? Isn't
there a hard limit to the amount of data that can be held on a spinning
disc?
Click to expand...

In 1984 I had a 17 megabyte hard drive that was about the size of two
CDROM drives stacked. It weighed at least 10 pounds.

Technology is constantly improving.

I recall one specific item from some years ago that involved a new
design for the actual read/write heads used by hard drives that
allowed them to be made physically smaller and also more precise. That
in turn allowed drives to be made with thinner data tracks that were
closer together, and with more data sectors on each physical track.
Almost overnight the capacity of hard drives quadrupled.

There have been many more similar advances made since then.

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."
 
In 1998 a big HD was about 8GB. By 2001 drives the same physical size held
80GB--10 times as much. My latest HD is actually slightly smaller in
footprint, but holds 200GB. How do they manage to keep doing that? Isn't
there a hard limit to the amount of data that can be held on a spinning
disc?
Click to expand...

You are referencing home drives. Industrial drives hold 100+ times more
data.
 
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