IBM Surpasses Record in Disk Drive Volume

IBM Corp. is expected to announce today that its scientists have doubled their own record in hard-disk information storage, getting more than 11 billion bits in a square inch of disk space. That means that every square inch of disk space can hold 1,450 average-sized novels, or more than 725,000 double-spaced typewritten pages, a stack taller than an 18-story building. Getting more information in the same amount of disk space is important because it lets disk drive manufacturers lower costs. Increasing storage density also lets companies make disk drives that are lighter and consume less energy. During the last six years, the average data-storage capacity of disk drives sold worldwide has increased 18-fold, while the price per megabyte has dropped 52-fold, IBM said. A byte is eight bits. A megabyte is a million bytes. A bit is the smallest unit of memory. IBM made the advances at its Almaden Research Center in San Jose. The company’s scientists succeeded in getting 5 billion bits on a square inch in December 1996.