Cornice demonstrates perpendicular recording technology

Chances are that your hard drive stores data using longitudinal recording. That won’t be the case for long if Cornice Inc., a Colorado based creator of consumer storage solutions, has their way. The company has demonstrated perpendicular recording technology, dubbed PMR, which will allow you to double the data stored on your drive.

It works like this – longitudinal recording stores the bits of data parallel to the surface of the disk. Instead, Cornice stores the same data vertically. To visualize, imagine your CD collection. Your hard drive would store them on their faces, lined up edge to edge. That would take up your whole living room to store them. Instead, PMR would store them on their edges, so that they were face to face. That would take up way less space to store the same number of CDs. On your drive that means higher capacity storage.

Besides improving storage density, PMR increases the chances of allowing the data to retain its magnetic charge. Since PMR is technically close to longitudinal recording, the current knowledge of the industry can be built upon instead of needing to be replaced.

Cornice has readied its next generation of products for PMR. You can see what they have on offer at CES.