Perpendicular recording, or PR, bumps up data density by laying down data bits or domains with the North-South magnetic axis perpendicularly to the platter.
The production disk drives shipping for the last half-century have featured longitudinal recording, but LR is running out of steam and the rate of increase of its data densities has been slowing from what had been a doubling every year. PR will put the technology back in line with Moore’s Law.
In January, Seagate launched the first production PR disk drive, which was a device aimed at notebooks. The PR drive it is launching this week is intended for high-end disk arrays, and will run at 15,000 rpm. It will be fitted with SAS, Ultra320 SCSI and FC interfaces, and will be offered in 73GB, 147GB and 300GB capacities.
The 15K.5 replaces Seagate’s 15K.4 drive, and is the first drive to deliver more than 100MB/sec throughput, Seagate said.
