Sony Corp is claiming a quantum breakthrough in magnetic disk storage capacity with a new technique for improving head positioning that it claims will enable a 2.5 disk drive to store as much as 1.5Gb – while being cheaper to make than current 2.5 drive storing 80Mb. It hopes to get drives using the new technology onto the market in about two years. The trick is to apply a technique borrowed from optical audio Compact Disks and carve a tiny spiral groove in the surface that the head can follow to improve the tracking accuracy of the magnetic head.
