In an article on the Seagate Blog, December 2, entitled “HAMR Milestone: Seagate Achieves 16TB Capacity on Internal HAMR Test Units”, John Paulsen describes an enhanced hard disk drive. It has been identified as a Technology Landmark for an OmegaMap.
The abbreviation HAMR stands for Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording. “HAMR uses a new kind of media magnetic technology on each disk that allows data bits, or grains, to become smaller and more densely packed than ever…” The essence of the innovation lies in the principle of operation. A laser beam is used to heat tiny spots on the disk.
The functional performance metric is terabytes per drive. The units described by Paulsen store 16TB per drive. These are internal test units. The company is working on 20TB per drive by 2020. These units will be delivered at the same size as a conventional hard drive.
Their technology readiness level is judged to be TRL4, i.e., “Technology validated in lab”.
Technical terminology is covered in: Van Wyk, Rias, (2017) Technology: Its Fundamental Nature, Beau Bassin, Mauritius, LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing, (http://amzn.to/2Avsk3r)
For descriptions of:
- Technology Landmark; pp. 83-84, Diagram 11.1, Stage 3
- Principle of operation; p. 20
- Functionality; pp. 24-25
- OmegaMap; pp. 92-93
- Functionality Grid; pp. 29-32
- Technology readiness levels; pp. 22-23
