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Nanotech To Replace Disk Drives Within Ten Years?
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Nov 01, 2007 06:33 PM
from the along-with-my-hip dept.
from the along-with-my-hip dept.
Ian Lamont writes "An Arizona State University researcher named Michael Kozicki claims that nanotechnology will replace disk drives in ten years. The article mentions three approaches: Nanowires (which replace electrons/capacitors), multiple memory layers on silicon (instead of a single layer), and a method that stores multiple pieces of information in the same space: 'Traditionally, each cell holds one bit of information. However, instead of storing simply a 0 or a 1, that cell could hold a 00 or a 01. Kozicki said the ability to double capacity that way — without increasing the number of cells — has already been proven. Now researchers are working to see how many pieces of data can be held by a single cell.'"
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That's just stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
That's meaningless.
I think "Nano-technology will double disk capacity in 10 years" would be better, but still pretty silly.
As apposed to those giant 1s and 0s we use now.
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Anyway this is some pretty cool
Re:That's just stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Nanotechnology is just, well, a technology. They will use nanotechnology to create storage devices, sure. It's like saying
"Mass production will replace the buggy" in 1895.
Mass production of what?
or
"Are abiltiy to make things spin will be used to store vast amounts of data"
What will be created using nano-technology?
Parent
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Re:That's just stupid (Score:5, Informative)
Mod parent up...
Hard disks are absolutely, with no qualification, nanotechnology. In fact, hard disks were the *first* nanotechnology we ever used, anywhere. Each bit on a modern hard disk is literally nanometers on a side, the read head is a thin film nanometers in thickness, flying above the disk less than a micron above the surface! Saying that nanotechnology will replace that is like saying that wheat will replace rye as the best sandwich containing substance. Moronic.
When I was helping with a proposal to the EPA for regulating the environmental effects of nanotech, I needed to come up with a definition for nanotechnology. The *only* definition that exists for nanotechnology is a system where the relevant controlled length-scale is less than 100nm. Hard drives are the most advanced nanotechnology on earth!
Parent
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Yes, the Kozicki quote is flawed when put out of context, but we all understand that he is talking about circuitry at nano levels. You are absolutely correct in your remarks, but don't get hung up on the first sentence of the news. Read the whole thing and get a grasp of it instead.
Having said that, I fully agree that hard drives are getting closer to an end. Mechanical components in a computer are not going to su
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Having said that, I fully agree that hard drives are getting closer to an end. Mechanical components in a computer are not going to survive much longer - and that includes media players (DVD, BR, HDDVD, etc). Eventually, hard drives will be chips and media content will be streams or sources over the air and by wire.
Unless you're suggesting storing data as a pattern of photons traveling through space [qntm.org] we'll need to have physical storage somewhere. For now it'll be electrical or magnetic (as with current hard drives and various types of flash memory) but eventually I can see all computing taking place physically on a nano scale. Mechanical devices at that scale don't suffer from wear and tear in the same way that macromechanical devices do (for instance DMD chips in projectors have the micromirrors moving thousands of t
The really stupid thing is... (Score:2)
...that this time it will take ten years.
Last time I read that nanotech would replace hard disks, it was only five years away. That was two years ago. I'm very happy to see this story tagged "again".
The question I'm left with is this: If it was going to take five years two years ago, and now it will take ten years, will it take fifteen years or twenty years in two years time? Answer me that and I may bother to RTFA. Hey, explain my own question to me in comprehensible terms and I'll be impressed.
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That's funny, I didn't really expect anyone else to know about that. Well played sir.
It's actually pretty awesome how they did this, although I'm more familiar with the use in stained glass windows. The red tint in stained glass windows from that era was from the surface plasmon of gold nanoparticles. They made it by adding a gold salt to the molten glass solution, and as it cooled the glass became viscous fast enough that diffusion was too slow to form bulk gold. Instead, gold nanoparticles nucleated and
Possibly... (Score:2, Insightful)
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Yes, I believe that was 3-5 years in the furture some time ago. Along with Exabyte-sized optical tape. None wver materialized.
Personally I believe for large-volume storage, magnetic media have at least 20 years ahead of them as dominat technology. For smaller storage, Flash will be there first. Even if they have a working prototype of nanotech storage in 10 years (by no means certain), getting it cheap, large and reliable enoug
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But [slashdot.org]
CC.
Flash memory IS nano technology (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, the article is talking about science fiction solutions that have been demonstrated for single bits at universities, but nobody has any idea how to mass produce it.
Meanwhile flash memory in production is approaching feature sizes of 30 nanometers with 2 or even 4 bits stored per cell. Also stacking of several memory layers on the same die has been demonstrated.
Flash took ten years to take off (Score:5, Insightful)
By comparison, nano-blaah is a long way off being able to demonstrate even a 1Mbyte storage, yet alone making it cheaply enough to be a mass storage player. I figure flash has a long life yet.
Parent
nanotech will do [insert topic] (Score:2, Insightful)
That cell could hold a 00 or a 01 (Score:5, Funny)
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And another one of the X will replace Y stories. (Score:3, Insightful)
When some manufacturer announces a product to be shipped within a month, that is of interest. This "story" is not.
Re:And another one of the X will replace Y stories (Score:2)
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Lets see: I predict that there will be flying cars for everybody within 10 years. No, wait, that prediciton was made some decades ago. Computers that understand human speech, as in really understand and can have a conversation in 10 years. Hmm. No. Already done and some decades late by now. I have it: CPUs so fast that computers will become intelligent and do all the work in 10 years! Nope, already predicted, but CPU power was not actually the problem.
Hmm. I
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What, you thought a flying car would look the same as a non flying car? that's just silly.
I don't think anyone with actually knowledge of computers predicted the last two.
But yeah, I love how quantum is abused in every piece of vapor ware and psuedoscience.
Here's a better replacement (Score:5, Funny)
You see periods are a lot smaller than zeros and spaces - which could be used as 1s - don't take any space at all.
Re:Here's a better replacement (Score:4, Funny)
Am I the only one who wondered what "sieieese" was?
Regards,
--
*Art
Parent
cell bytes (Score:2)
It would be amazing if they could get a single cell to hold a whole byte instead of a bit. That would be some serious capacity there. Imagine your Zen, but with your DVD collection PLUS your music collection.
Neat. Also vaporware, but still neat.
Multi-level cell == slowdown (Score:4, Informative)
Seems theis guy does not know storage technology.. (Score:2)
4 times the storage (Score:2, Funny)
Yes, you are. (Score:5, Funny)
[0] [1]
[00] [01] [10] [11]
Of course, two one-bit cells hold the same number of values.
[0][0] [0][1] [1][0] [1][1]
Two one-bit cells = one two-bit cell. Twice the capacity. Not that the article is terribly clear-- if their "miracle device" can really only hold 00 and 01, they've just invented a crappy new notation for binary.
Parent
Yes I am. (Score:3, Informative)
Four possible values, not four times as many values.
Apparently, I can't count.
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Twice the space? (Score:4, Funny)
Full-scale prototype? (Score:2)
I also pay very little attention to what people say we can do technology wise ten years from now, because it is hard to prognosticate what advances might alter said time-table, or whether or not another solution might even make your solution obsolete in those ten years.
When Toyota and Honda were giving a 10-year estimate on fuel cell cars, at the very least they had full scale, working prototypes that you could drive. When you have a full-scale prototype of this hard, let
nanowhat? The maliability of words (Score:3, Insightful)
Much like the term "robot" which now includes radio controlled toy cars which it specifically did not include 15 years ago, Nanotechnology is a word which has developed a broader and broader meaning over time.
Nanotechnology used to be specific to microscopic moving parts. Micromachines. As people started to work on it they began to attempt to create parts using techniques from the silicon chip industry. the silicon chip industry therefor became nanotechnology as well, which is how those "memory cells" got into the whole thing.
These days it just means really really small stuff. If this is true wouldn't modern disk drives be nanotech too since the memory blocks are microscopically small?
To take it even further, you cold even include some kinds of paint and adhesive tape due to the way the glue and pigment particles adhere to surfaces or reflect light.
The word nanotech when used in this way is becoming so broad as to stop being useful. The word nanotechnology originally meant nanobots and that is what the term is most popularly accociated with in the public mind. It is the flavor of wild over the horizon borderline magic technology. people like to attach the word to whatever they are working on because it associates thier work with these feelings. It's not science it's brand recognition.
To use another term which was the ultra hip over used buzz word word back in the 70's, a more accurate way to describe the content would be to substitute the term "solid state". This merely says containing no moving parts. That wouldn't be particularly cool thoroughly since anyone looking at the laptop and smartphone industry can tell this is already happening.
nanotube stocks (Score:2)
Wow (Score:2, Funny)
instead of storing simply a 0 or a 1, that cell could hold a 00 or a 01.
I'm sure it will be even better once they figure out how to make it store 10 and 11.
Stupid... (Score:3, Insightful)
USB connected flash memory is called a flash disk even today... etc.
I really hate articles where they say "plastic will replace cars" or "prefab concrete will replace houses". They're incompatible nouns. Try "Cars will be made from plastic" or "Houses will be made from prefab concrete" or "Disk drives will be made using nanotechnology".
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Any device made out of nanotechnology that serves the same function will be called a "disk drive" even if there's no disk in it.
Thinking like this is why we have customers bringing their PCs and calling the case a "hard drive". Ditto for those confusing "storage" with "memory". It's people like that what cause unrest...
It's a DRIVE, as there's nary a "disk" in sight. No motor or heavy magnets inside, either. These facts {and that it's not prone to servo/"moving parts"-type physical failures} places it in another category altogether.
USB connected flash memory is called a flash disk even today... etc
Not at almost every vendor I checked. Try entering "flash disk" at Wikipedia, and you'll be redi
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How many vendors? Probably none.
How many people on the street? A lot more than you think. And surprisingly, if you own one, it doesn't automatically make you a "geek". They're ubiquitous devices now. Almost reliable enough that people don't consider them to be "technology".
Also... it's not a "drive". The drive component refers to the motors that spin the disks... which don't exist. If you wa
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Do you think most people out there called the things "flash disks" are also editors on Wikipedia? Probably none.
Evidently there's at LEAST one, as a search on "flash disk" there redirects you to "flash drive".
How many vendors? Probably none.
If you'd looked, you'd have seen what the rest of us did. While Samsung may call it a drive, [samsungssd.com] they're smart enough to know the Sheeple might call it a disk, and include metatags to suit the crawlers... [wikipedia.org]
Also... it's not a "drive". The drive component refers to the motors that spin the disks... which don't exist. If you want to get picky about it. Let's just say I'll be happy to concede the point when you can show me the motor that "drives" the "flash drive".
Ya want positive or negative drive? [freepatentsonline.com]
Explain to me why we wont be using holocrystals? (Score:2)
their sensitivity to emp and moisture, their tendency toward bit rot, their propensity toward obsolescence, all placing in danger our records as individuals, society, and as a species. (think the original voyager data, the format has been lost iirc)
We have known about holographic crystal storage for decades now.
It's extremely high capacity and high throughput.
Best of all it's waterproof, immune to EMP, not subject to bit rot.
Data can be store
11 (Score:2, Funny)
Hard drives are nanotech (Score:3)
What the submitter may mean is that magnetic storage might be supplanted by storage based on other state variables than magnetic domain orientation, or that non-binary storage (4-bit, etc.) may eventually supplant binary storage.
Duh.
Numerous entities are pursuing solid state storage (no moving parts), and have been for years. Flash, NAND, FeRAM, MI transition layers, phase change storage, and on and on...
But the fact is that currently, hard drives are the most cost-efficient mode of permanent data storage in most applications. In some cases, solid state is more advantageous. As those technologies are developed, one or more will eventually replace hard drives.
It will be solid state. It may or may not be binary. But it will be nanotech, just like hard drives.
Who needs storage anyway? (Score:3, Insightful)
No. Someday, I will mostly store software on my equivalent of an iPod, media will be stored by Google (who everyone hates by then, since microsoft has become insignificant) in a semi-p2p network based on both servers and users. My download speed will be good enough to stream anything I want.
Basically, there are two trends I see i personal computing: Computers are becoming smaller and more portable (duh) and internet services are in increasing demand. This means the optimal future computer will be a tiny device with an extremely high speed internet connection. That is the opposite of great amounts of storage. Who needs to have music, movies, photos and TV shows when you can just have good internet access? You still need that if you want the very latest of anything anyway.
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00
01
10
11
as options in the cell.
Obligatory binary joke (Score:2)
Re:Replace what? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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