Significantly Enhance Hard Disk Drive Performance by using Titanium Foil Disk Substrates

Computers are a part of our daily life and data storage is an essential element in any computing system. Over the years compute power has increased significantly but the availability of economical, high speed data storage has been lacking. Today, concerns range from how quickly can information be stored and retrieved to how long it takes a personal computer to become ready for use after it is started. The most economical and prevalent random access data storage device is the hard disk drive. This product relies on spinning disks to store and retrieve information. The inertia of the spinning disks dictates the power requirements, cooling and volume of the unit. The objective of the proposed research is to demonstrate the replacement of the current thick hard disks with very thin titanium foil disks, reducing disk inertia by an order of magnitude. This change will allow the unit to operate at very high speeds, increasing data transfer rates significantly while consuming less power. Commercial Application and Other Benefits: Implementing titanium foil disks in the disk drive will reduce its cost. The magnetic recording film, electronics and other hardware will remain unchanged while the cost of the foil disk will be lower due to a significantly smaller material volume. The thinness of these disks can be exploited to allow more foil disk platters to be installed in the same disk drive, resulting in increased storage capacity at a decreased cost. Additionally, significantly slimmer disk drives can be designed for use in portable computing, communication and entertainment systems, while data centers will require less space decreasing operating expenses