Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has unveiled its first drives that use perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology.

Unlike Seagate, which has introduced both desktop and notebook PC drives that use PMR, Hitachi is starting out with notebook drives only. The 2.5in Travelstar 5K160 is a 160GB 5600rpm hard disk drive that uses two 80GB platters.

Perpendicular recording offers up to 10 times the storage that is currently available on traditional hard disk drives. PMR organises the magnetic grains of a hard drive vertically, which greatly increases the amount of storage per square inch.

Hiroaki Nakanishi, chief executive of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, said: “Our mission was to deliver PMR technology when it is of the highest value to our customers. This is when the transition from longitudinal recording would be seamless. That time is now.”

Hitachi also boasted that the 5K160 is a “drive of steel”, following intensive testing and a series of innovations that tackle three key disk-drive headaches: media corrosion, head instability and head/disk interference. These include a new PMR head that offers an improved soft-error rate by being able to write smaller bits with more precision, and the use of read-head alloy iridiummanganese chromium (IrMnCr). The IrMnCr sensor is twice as stable in real-world situations against existing read heads, Hitachi has claimed.

Each drive will also ship with a three-year warranty.

The vendor is also working on a 1.8in version of the PMR notebook drive, which will ship later in the year. Targeted at the consumer electronics market, the new drive will boost capacity and reduce power consumption by 20 per cent, Hitachi said.

Campbell Kan, head of mobile computing business at Acer, welcomed the new technology.

“The move to perpendicular recording is a challenging but necessary one,” he said. “It is required to support the increased demands in notebook capacity, especially as video applications are gaining such massive popularity.”

martin_lynch@vnu.co.uk