Nobel Hard Drive Tech Revived

Hard disk space is about to quadruple, says Hitachi, thanks to this year’s Nobel Prize-winning physicists. The company today announced it had developed a new technology for passing data between the disk and the disk-reading heads which shrinks the heads and allow for disk storage of up to 4 terabytes of data. It marks a return to tech pioneered by the Nobel winners.

Manufacturers are producing disks with more and more information per square inch, but denser disks need smaller heads to read them, CNet explains, and smaller heads can mean more electrical noise that interferes with disks operations. The new adaptation of the Nobelists' design helps reduce that noise as the scale shrinks. Hitachi's new drives are expected to hit the market by 2009. (More hard drives stories.)