back to article MAMR Mia – it's not just WD: Toshiba's popped to the microwave too

Toshiba, like Western Digital, is going to use Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording (MAMR) to escape the inability of current PMR tech to go beyond 15-16TB disk drive capacity. Western Dig's MAMR is so phat, it'll store 100TB on a hard drive by 2032 READ MORE Up to now we haven't known what Toshiba planned to do to increase …

  1. Alister

    We understand microwave electro-magnetic radiation has frequencies and wavelengths between 1mm and 1m, and frequencies between 300GHz (1mm wave length) and 300MHz (1m).

    Curious, I've never considered the 70cm band (432MHz) to be microwave.

    1. A.P. Veening Silver badge

      Microwave definition

      "Curious, I've never considered the 70cm band (432MHz) to be microwave."

      Technically it is, but every day household usage limits microwave to the microwave oven. However, that is a very limited part of the microwave spectrum.

  2. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

    But will that be enough for Windows 10 AND all the patches?

    1. Martin Summers Silver badge

      Yes, don't forget that the latest release will delete your My Documents folders for you to make sure you've got the space.

  3. YourNameHere

    Do not use near microwave over.

    And do not place your laptop on top of the microwave oven while re-heating the pub food from last night...

    1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

      Re: Do not use near microwave over.

      I think that's probably true even today.

  4. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

    Imnpressive!

    I thought they packed pretty tightly already!

  5. whitepines
    Boffin

    It's a shame they aren't creating an air version of this. Relying on He-filled drives doesn't seem like a good plan unless you cycle them out before the He leaks out, and if you're going to be cycling them that fast surely NAND is going to be a strong competitor?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    be nice if

    someone would start churning out 9cm drives with 1Tbit/cm2 areal density and so on. But someone has to decide to...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      ironically

      this so-called 3.5" platter right here (repurposed as a shaving mirror) is clearly 95mm a.k.a. ~3.75"

  7. LordHighFixer

    Thats all good and all

    but is 16TB of data much more than an educational exercise for HD manufacturers. Mechanical drives have their place, but at this point I believe that they should start going for diversification, or put some more money in to their R&D labs, specifically telling them they are not to try to make a better mechanical drive, just denser storage.

  8. cjrcl

    Is HAMR really inferior?

    If HAMR will actually result in wearing to platters then the prospect for Seagate would be dim.

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