Researchers Claim 100-fold Increase in Data Storage Speed
Added 9th Feb 2012European researchers may have found a way to speed up data storage 100-fold, breaking one barrier holding back how fast data can be transferred.
If successfully translated to a storage product, the new technology alone would theoretically cut the time to store a bit of data on a hard disk drive from a nanosecond - a billionth of a second - to a hundred-billionth of a second.
MORE NETWORK RESEARCH: Follow our AlphaDoggs blog
That means the aggregate time to store the bits in a terabyte of data would drop from about 22 minutes to about a minute and 20 seconds.
The researchers at York University in the U.K. and Nijmegen University in the Netherlands accomplished the feat by heating a magnetic material with laser bursts that alter what is called the magnetic spin of the material at the atomic level, according to an explanation by York University. There are two possible spins, parallel and anti-parallel, and in storage, these binary states would represent the ones and zeros that designate bit types.
Current storage on hard drives alters spin using a fluctuating magnetic field, which is slower, the researchers say. Their method "used X-ray Magnetic Circular Dichroism (XMCD) to investigate thin films of an alloy of gadolinium iron and cobalt (GdFeCo) to study ultrafast spin reversal."
The researchers didn't say how long it might take for their discovery to be turned into ultra-fast storage devices.
latest news
-
UK Government Publishes Open Data Institute Plans
The new Open Data Institute will initially support start-ups that use open data to drive economic growth
-
Shareholders sue Facebook, Zuckerberg, Morgan Stanley
Class action lawsuit, launched Wednesday, alleges info was hidden by Facebook, Morgan Stanley prior to IPO
-
Windows 8 Puts End to Endless Reboots
OS kicks out to recovery tools after second boot failure
-
Apple is 'Most Valuable' Global Brand Despite Jobs' Death
Apple boosted its brand value by 19% in the past year to $182,951 billion, or 37 percent of its market capitalisation.
