We're getting a kick out of Hitachi marketers, where last month they announced an HDTV line they called Wooo—no kidding— and now they're touting a perpendicular hard drive they've named the "Drive of Steel." What's so super about it? Hitachi says the 160GB Travelstar 5K160 2.5-inch drive is so perpendicular that it's "super pendicular," whatever that is, and that's no misspelling on our part.
Breathless marketing aside, the technology inside this drive, aimed at the notebook market, is called perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR), and it's able to pack bits more closely together without distortion. Hitachi says its design uses a read head made out of indium, manganese, and chromium alloy which brings a 2x improvement in field reliability. Expect to see Hitachi using the same technology in next-generation 1.8-inch drives in the second half of this year. For now, to be unveiled in a phone booth near you, the Hitachi 5K160 will be on sale this summer for $269.
Hitachi hard drive makes firm go nuts in May [the Inquirer]