+ - Hot Idea for a Faster Hard Drive-> 2
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sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes "An ultrashort heat pulse can predictably flip a bit in a magnetic memory like the one in your hard drive. The surprising effect could ultimately lead to magnetic memories hundreds of times faster and more energy efficient than today's hard drives. It also provides a way to control the direction in which a bit is magnetized without applying something else that has a direction, such as a magnetic field."
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Get back to me when... (Score:2)
Get back to me when you can also read the bit with a heat pulse.
So what are we talking about here? (Score:2)
Is this going to be a tracked head device like the drive heads we have now, or will it be more pseudorandom access (ie a line of static emitters laid across each side of each platter)?
If it's going to be the first one we've still got a slight problem in that it can only be above one bit at any given instant. With n emitters we can be above n bits and flip them simultaneously, but then we run into another problem: latent heat building inside the cabinet. It may well depend on emitter density, of course, but