According to a storage research firm by the name of TrendFocus, hard drive manufacturers will be able to dispense with disk platter separator components, allowing them to squeeze more storage platters into a 3.5-inch enclosure. While this all looks very exciting for desktop and server-based storage hard drives, what about those drives that are fit into mobile machines such as notebooks. Currently, notebooks are only able to accommodate 2.5-inch hard drives, and honestly, we do not see that changing at the moment due to their thickness. It is relatively difficult to store a large amount of storage platters inside smaller form factors due to space limitations but overtime, we expect that to change with the arrival of 18TB hard drives. Because of changes in technology and manufacturing processes, we could be looking at nine platter drives with the platters themselves a touch larger too, and able to hold 1.5TB of data each, pushing up to a capacity of near-14TB when we reach next year. Hard drives are currently using a perpendicular magnetic recording tech, but manufacturers switching to shingled magnetic recording will allow them to increase the drive’s overall capacity, with 18TB storage peripherals expected to arrive during 2017. Naturally, such drives will carry an expensive price tag and are going to be pitched to enterprises that make use of high levels of data. Improved technology will also mean that these drives boast higher efficiency than their predecessors. In order for such drives to be popular among the masses, a healthy price/performance ratio is going to be required in order to make this possible. Tech Radar
