Hitachi plans 5TB drives by 2010

Hitachi expects to offer a hard disk with five terabytes of storage by 2010, the company tells Japan's Nikkei BP (registration required). While some recent developments are nearing one terabit per inch, Hitachi says its CPP-GMR (Current Perpendicular to the Plane Giant Magnetoresistance) technology has improved to where the company will push past 1TB per inch in two years and allow a 5TB, 3.5-inch desktop hard drive in two years.

The capacity is such that it may change the nature of what can be stored, according to Hitachi. A computer with two of the 5TB drives is estimated to hold roughly as much information as a typical human brain and would permit computers to have a similar level of memory recall.

Previously, Hitachi has said the first practical uses of CPP-GMR would appear next year and would provide roughly 2.5 times the amount of storage as we see now, which would lead to 2.5TB desktop drives and 1.25TB, 2.5-inch notebook drives. The storage producer hasn't said whether or not today's developments will lead to larger capacities by that time.

Filed under: upgrades/storage
Other story tags: Hitachi