Manufacturers have been punching out larger capacity hard drives like crazy over the past few years.  It seems Fujitsu Computer Products of America Inc. will take the cake on this one.  According to PC World, the company is expected to announce later this week that it has developed a type of hard disk which uses alumina nanoholes for isolated bit-by-bit recording on a large disk area.

Fujistu says is has performed the basic read/write capabilities of each nanohole using a typical flying head on a rotating disk.  This giant step for Fujitsu can ultimately lead the manufacturer to produce 1.2TB on a two-platter, 2.5-inch drive.

According to vice president of business development at Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Joel Hagberg , the alumina nanohole media was created using Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) processes. These processes use nano-imprint lithography (enabling discrete distance from bit to bit or track to track), anodic oxidation and cobalt electrodeposition at a density of 100-nanometer-pitch nanoholes.

While the ideal pattern technology will allow Fujitsu to produce a larger drive with fewer challenges, the company still needs to examine the presence of pattern thermal assist recording technology to warm the media before writing.  This also means determining power consumption and cooling efforts.  For businesses, finding minimized drives that reach high capacity points is most ideal.

"[Fujitsu's achievement] allows especially the smaller form factors to reach pretty high capacities. From a business-requirement standpoint, one advantage that brings is the opportunity to use smaller drives for applications, and smaller drives tend to use less power," remarked International Data Corporation (IDC) analyst, John Rydning. "That kind of technology is definitely what's needed to get [improved storage] requirements."

If the drives are production ready, manufacturing and release is not expected until 2010.