ABSTRACT
Hard disk drives (HDDs) have been the basis for the explosion of information available in the last decades. In 2002, approximately 5 exabytes1 of information were produced in the world and 92% were stored on magnetic media, mostly (>50%) stored in HDDs [1]. The estimated number of HDDs sold during 2003 reached 235 million, capable of storing more than 15 exabytes of data. That corresponds to a 15,000% increase in storage capability since 1995 [1]. At the same time, the cost per gigabyte (GB) has dropped dramatically, below $0.50/GB by 2005, making HDDs affordable for many other applications beyond computers. It is expected that 13% of all HDD shipped in 2005 will be used in consumer application
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products others than computers, such as portable digital music players (like the iPod®), personal video recorders (Tivo®), and video game boxes (X-box®) [2].
