Disk Drive Storage – The Past, Present and Future

Today, about 90 percent of all new data created reside on magnetic media, primarily hard disk drives. Every day new applications are incorporating hard disk drives to allow for the rapid storage and retrieval of important data, driving more than $30 billion in revenue in 2005. This talk will focus on the rich past, exciting present and challenging future of the hard disk drive. Over the past 50 years, areal density, the measurement of how many data bits can be stored on an inch of disk space, has increased over 50 million times. At the same time, drives have gone from filling a room to fitting in a cell phone. New technologies such as perpendicular recording and tunneling magnetoresistive heads are continuing the acceleration of storage density today. The hard disk drive is an amazing collection of technologies requiring innovative engineers and scientists from many diverse backgrounds. The challenges that are present in extending hard disk drive technology into the future through Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) and discrete patterned media will prove exciting for the next generation of storage technologists.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

William Cain is the Senior Director of Advanced Product Engineering at Western Digital Corporation. In this position he is responsible for developing new areal density technologies for future drive products. He has held several other positions at WD including drive program management, failure analysis and the creation of the external storage product line. Prior to joining WD, Dr. Cain held leadership positions in data storage companies including; Senior Director of Product Development at Akashic Memories Corporation and Director of engineering for MR and Planar head technologies at Read-Rite/Censtor Corporation. Prior to Read-Rite, he was involved in the initial development of spin-valve GMR technologies at the Storage Systems Division of IBM.

Dr. Cain holds Ph.D., M.S. and B.S. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He has numerous articles published in scientific and engineering publications, and eight patents related to magnetic recording technologies.