What is a Hard Disk Drive?

A Hard Disk Drive (HDD) is a device used by modern computers to permanently store information. The Hard Disk Drive is arguable the most essential part of a computer system in that all the information that is permanently stored is contained within its enclosure, including your computer’s Operating System (OS). Thanks to Hard Disk Drives, long gone are the days when you would have had to keep all your programs and documents stored on removable media such as Floppy Disks or CD-ROMs.

Originally invented in the mid 1950’s and made commercially available in 1956 by International Business Machines (IBM). Called RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control), the first Hard Disk Drives contained as much as 50 platters which were 24 inches in diameter and were computers in their own right albeit with a single purpose – to store data. The entire unit which housed the hard drive was the approximate size of two large refrigerators placed side by side. In the 50 or so years since their invention, Hard Disk Drives have steadily and aggressively far out paced Moore’s law. Which stipulates that memory in computers will increase by 100% approximately every 18 months. Hard Disk Drives on the other hand have increased capacity in the same period by approximately 130%, an increase of 100% every nine months in many cases. Such capacity increases are being threatened, however. I
Read more »

Don’t worry about whether the iPods of the future will have enough storage to keep up with your mobile entertainment needs. Samsung said it has fabricated the world’s first 30nm 64GB NAND lash memory chips. A set of 16 such chips could be used to make a 128 GB flash memory storage card. That’s enough storage for 80 DVD-resolution movies or 32,000 MP3 music files, the company said. The chip depends on manufacturing technology that can create circuits on chips with a width of just 30nm. It was only seven years ago that Samsung made its fist 1GB NAND chip with 100nm manufacturing technology. Samsung said it used a new process called “self-aligned double patterning technology,” which it called a pivotal advance beyond the charge trap flash that Samsung developed for NAND flash last year when it introduced a new material, silicon nitride, in the chip-making process. Samsung expects to begin shipping the chips in 2009, and it has applied for 30 patents on it.

Source: CPU Mag

Power consumption has been one of the big hold-ups for putting Wi-Fi wireless networking into a wide range of mobile devices. But Atheros Communications hopes to change that with its new Atheros AR6002 family of Wi-Fi chips. Atheros says the AR6002 family uses 70% less power than the best chips on the market today. The company says a device could download 200GB of data before depleting a 3.7-volt battery in a gadget that uses the AR6002. That means that gadget designers may start putting Wi-Fi into more smartphones, personal media players, digital still cameras, gaming handhelds, and other devices. The company will ship several versions of the chips using different versions of Wi-Fi in the first quarter of 2008.

Source: CPU Mag

So much for IDE, Seagate leaves the parallel interface behind, along with longitudinal recording, in its latest generation of PMR (perpendicular magnetic recording) terabyte drives.

Seagate’s latest, the Barracuda 7200.11 is available in 500GB, 750GB, and 1TB capacities, all with a choice of a 3Gbps or 1.5Gbps SATA interface with NCQ. There’s Seagate’s Enhanced G-Force Protection against off-duty knocks, dynamic head fly height adjustment, and a full stroke disk calibration feature called Clean Sweep.

I compared the 7200.11, singly and in a RAID 0, to its ES.2 SATA enterprise version ($419). The ES.2 offers improved resistance to the vibrations found in multidrive servers and uses about 20% less power than the previous generation of ES, according to Seagate. For contrast, I added benchmarks from my review of Hitachi’s vaunted Deskstar 7K1000 1TB drive in the June 2007 issue of CPU. (See pages 18-22.) Take the latter for what they’re worth, as they were gathered from a different test system. 

Even without a direct comparison, it’s clear that the newest generation of PMR drives have vaulted 7,200rpm performance into a new tier. Breaking the terabyte barrier makes for nice headlines, too. You really can’t lose with any o these drives, although Seagate wins on prices (for the 7200.11, at least) and warranty. In the real world, however, either brand will give you superb speed and awesome capacity.

Is it true? Has Google dipped its toe into the hardware business?  With the recent announcement of the gPC one might think so.

However creators of gPC, Everex, have been careful to point out that gPC is entirely independent from Google.  Interesting comment when the list of applications running on the gPC includes Gmail, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, Google Product Search, Google Blogger, Google YouTube, Google Maps and Google News.  A closer look reveals Everex’s plan to create an affordable PC by taking advantage of Open Source technologies including Linux OS, OpenOffice, Firefox and Google.

With a selling price of $199, well below a comparable system from DELL or HP, and using WalMart as the sole distributor of the gPC this is sure to get a lot of attention in the next few months.

Is the gPC for everyone? Probably not but after reading feedback from early purchasers of gPC I am seriously thinking of investing in a gPC for my Mom.

Fast on the heals of the gPC launch, early this week Google announced that mobile phones based on Google software will be available the second half of 2008.

Looks like these two announcements are the precursors to more interesting changes on the horizon in the world of IT.