"Jonathan Lewis" <jonathan_at_jlcomp.demon.co.uk> wrote in message news:<1019891456.25305.1.nnrp-13.9e984b29_at_news.demon.co.uk>...
> The thing that puzzles me about this point is
> why no-one has come onto the market with
> a drive that holds multiple sets of heads,
> say every 90 degrees (pi/2 radians) around
> the disc. Expensive, no doubt, but cuts
> the rotational latency by a factor which would
> probably get close to 4 (given the right s/w
> and a mechanism for synching the position
> of the disc.
For having one head pear 90 degrees, you need to have different head
move mechanism than nowadays, because you can't fit four todays
mechanisms on one disc side without crashes between them.
However, you can have two heads mounted from oposite directions. Even
with two heads I have doubts about fitting everything in 3.5" form
factor. Another issue can be a heat dissipation, which is already
problem with 7200+ rpm disk drives. Two engines (instead of one) for
moving heads and more complex electronics, can produce heat, which
will be difficult to eliminate without eliminating the drive. :-) I've
seen a lot of dead HDDs, because of heat, even with only one head per
disc side.
--
_________________________________________
Dusan Bolek, Ing.
Oracle team leader
Note: pagesflames_at_usa.net has been cancelled due to changes (maybe we
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Received on Mon Apr 29 2002 - 05:49:22 CDT
