Japanese researchers have developed a new HDD technology that could boost the capacity of hard disk drives to 24TB. The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), Japan's public management organization that promotes research and development on energy and environmental technologies, National University Corporation Tokyo Institute of Technology, Kyoto University and Hitachi, have succesfully developed a HDD technology for storing data at a density of 3.9Tbit per square inch.

Essentially, when you are recording on a magnetic material, bits (a collection of magnetized particles) are laid out end-to-end on disk platters. Storage capacity is generally increased by decreasing the size of the magnetic grains that make-up data bits. As the magnetic grains became smaller or arranged more efficiently, more data could then be stored on the disk. The Japanese researchers have developed an ultra-high density paterning technology based on a self-arranged phenomenon of polymer materials. The materials allowed for the formation of accurate magnetic strustures sized just 10nm.

The technology, when applied to current density HDD (with areal density of about 500Gbits / square inch), will result to an 8-fold increase in the recording density. This means that we could see HDD with capacities of 24TB in the future.

The new technology will be presented at the 2010 Material Research Society Fall meeting, held November 29-December 3 in Boston, Massachusetts.