Samsung Starts Sideways Storage
Perpendicular storage continues to gain momentum in the storage world, with Samsung joining Seagate, Hitachi, Western Digital, and other manufacturers releasing the next-generation hard drives to the market.
Samsung introduced its M80 Series drives featuring PMR (Perpendicular Magnetic Recording) technology in 80GB, 120GB, and 160GB capacities. The drives represent Samsung’s first foray into drives based on perpendicular technology, which places data bits perpendicular to the disc, compared to traditional longitudinal drives, which lay data bits end to end. The perpendicular technology allows drives to squeeze more data onto a disc and also prevents data corruption.
The 2.5-inch drives also offer increased data protection through the incorporation of free-fall sensors. Whereas other notebook drives offer up to about 325G of operating shock tolerance, Samsung’s new drives provide 700G of tolerance. Further, the company claims that the drives can more accurately detect changes in acceleration caused by a free fall, and the sensor “parks the drive’s head on the ramp” and turns the hard drive off, in turn protecting the drive (and its data) from damage caused by a fall.
Samsung also says its free-fall sensors differ from those in competitors’ hard drives because they’re located on the hard drive instead of a notebook’s motherboard, which increases the response time when a fall occurs and also boosts the quality of fall detection.