It seems the disk drive industry has decided which future technology to use and in which order, judging by recent Western Digital and Xyratex discussions with investment analysts.
The current perpendicular magnetic recording technology (PMR) is running out of steam as continued size reductions in the magnetised bit area lead to unreliable data storage. There are two long-term technologies suggested as a way to defeat this: heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) and bit-patterned media (BPM) plus a short-term boost to areal density improvements with PMR by using partially overlapping tracks in Shingled write technology.
WD’s CFO, Wolfgang Nickl, presented to financial analysts yesterday and provided a three-step technology roadmap.
