Toshiba produce a prototype 120 GB 1.8 inch HD platter

The boffins at Toshiba have done it again, they’ve managed to squeeze more zeroes and ones onto a HDD through Discrete Track Recording (DTR) technology. Here’s the techie blurb and a pretty picture from Toshiba that for once made sense to me!

So what does this mean to you and me. Well for some reason DTR is best applied to small form factor HDDs, namely the 1.8 and 2.5 inch variations so it means more disk space for your iPod and laptop. Currently the 1.8 inch HDDs max out at 60 GB - Apple slap two of these platters together to make their 160 GB iPod - but with DTR the platters will reach a 120GB capacity allowing Apple to come out with a 240 GB iPod with the same physical size as the 120 GB model. Cool, eh?

1.8 inch HDDs are also used in other devices such mobile PCs, digital vid cams and car nav units, so their capacities should be increased as well. And for those of use who are keeping track of the score Toshiba now squeeze in 333 Gb per square inch on these new drives.

The downside? Well Toshiba doesn’t plan to start mass production of drives boasting the new DTR tech until 2009, so it’ll be a while before a bigger capapcity iPod appears, but at least it’s on the horizon.

Source: Toshiba