Just reading the piece over on /. about the latest 300GB hard disks, with 4 80 GB platters. It got me wondering about speed....
What would happen if a manufacturer implemented 8 read/write channels such that all 8 could be used simultaneously? You should be able to stream data to/from the disk at astronomical speeds, though you wouldn't get much of an advantage in access time. It doesn't appear to be done now (for example, 120 GB disks with two platters clock data off at about the same rate as 120 GB disks with 3 platters), but seems like a relatively simple change that would make the geeks of the world simply wet their pants.
There are certainly synchronization issues associated with this (is head 8 perfectly aligned with head 1 ( or at least aligned exactly the same as when the unit was formatted at the factory)? Seems simple enough to overcome - have each head read a sector into it's own buffer, and let the interface start cranking data when all 8 are done.
There must be some reason why this isn't done. Anyone?
/frank
What would happen if a manufacturer implemented 8 read/write channels such that all 8 could be used simultaneously? You should be able to stream data to/from the disk at astronomical speeds, though you wouldn't get much of an advantage in access time. It doesn't appear to be done now (for example, 120 GB disks with two platters clock data off at about the same rate as 120 GB disks with 3 platters), but seems like a relatively simple change that would make the geeks of the world simply wet their pants.
There are certainly synchronization issues associated with this (is head 8 perfectly aligned with head 1 ( or at least aligned exactly the same as when the unit was formatted at the factory)? Seems simple enough to overcome - have each head read a sector into it's own buffer, and let the interface start cranking data when all 8 are done.
There must be some reason why this isn't done. Anyone?
/frank
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