The terabyte can be easily explained as a unit of computer memory or data storage capacity equal to 1,024 gigabytes (240 bytes) OR One trillion bytes



History stands testimony that no other technology can boast of being as eagerly anticipated as 1 Terabyte hard drives. These long awaited and much deserved drives have altered the digital landscape forever. Mega bytes to Giga Bytes and Giga Bytes to TeraBytes. The evolution hasn’t been as steadfast as imagined. Yet, thanks to the perpendicular magnetic recording technology, 1 TB has finally hit the floors.

Everybody knows that data is recorded on hard drives platters by a write head through magnetization and demagnetization. Usually the bits thus recorded are placed in a linear fashion. PMR records data by perpendicular arrangement of magnetic bits on the surface of the platter. The north south poles of the magnetic bits on the platters of the disk are not aligned linearly but perpendicularly which enables high density storage due to greater number of bits on the same platter. This technology offers information densities of up to 1 Tbit/sq. inch (1000 Gbit/sq. inch) as opposed to100 to 200 gigabit per square inch offered by linear recording technology.

WHY TERABYTE?

New breakthroughs in the field of digital media and recording of videos through internet and television have increased the appetite for storage. In spite of this, the need for Tera bytes was fiercely debated time and again. But with their arrival, this question seems to be out of place. Massive storage needs have forced the leading hardware companies to come out with their own 1 TB drives. Hitachi was first in this category followed by Seagate and Samsung. The features of these drives are given below:

Hitachi

Model Deskstar7k1000, Cinema Star

Seek time 8.7 ms (read)

Cache memory 32 mb

Rpm 7,200 rpm

Platters 5

Acoustics 2.9 bels

Density 140 mn bits/q inch

Interface SATA

Advantages • High cache memory

• Massive capacity; great performance

Disadvantages More capacity means more data to lose;

Seagate

Model Barracuda 7200.11 Barracuda ES.2,

Seek time 8.5 ms

Cache memory 32 mb

Rpm 7,200 rpm

Platters 4

Acoustics 2.7 bels

Interface SAS / SATA

Advantages • Unrecoverable error rate 10 times better.

• 1.2 million hour Mean Time Between Failure at full 24 x 7 data availability.

• Leading 105MB/s sustained transfer rate – the highest ever

Disadvantages it's the most expensive desktop drive to date.

Besides these Samsung’s Spin Point F11 TB uses just three 334GB platters, a record in both a real density as well as platter capacity. By contrast, 1TB drives from Hitachi and Seagate use five 200GB and four 250GB platters, respectively. 7200rpm motors, 16MB or 32MB cache (depending on the model) and are designed for Serial ATA-300 interface with native command queuing. The manufacturer declares 8.9ms average read seek time and 4.17ms average latency.

WHERE TERABYTE?

Another popular application of terabytes is for NAS .ie, Network Attached Storage is the name given to network storage which facilitates centralized access to data and centralized data storage facilities for heterogeneous clients. Simply put, this means NAS is an array of hard disks including multi disk RAID systems along with software’s to map file locations on the network attached device. Within the storage network, it is possible to set user priorities using a web browser. The NAS is set up with its own network and not attached to the main server. This system of storage reduces the burden on the main network server and provides access and storage facilities to NAS network users.

1 TB drives means more space for network attached storage. This means facility for storage of about 250,000 songs, 350 movies, 1000 hrs of video, 333,300 photos, or more than 500 full version games. With the introduction of such advanced storage systems, it is possible to erase data storage limits.

TERABYTE Hard Drives – A Challenge Data Recovery Software companies?

No Doubt, terabyte hard drives is a revolution in the scenario of hard drive capacity. However, with every revolution there is a darker side of it. These high capacity hard drives would be practically storing tons of valuable data in it, and the hard failure or any software malfunction can make the hard drive data inaccessible. Leading to data Loss …

So we would be needing data recovery, and we know that nearly all the data recovery company in the market are recovering data through scanning the hard drive sector & block wise. So with this large hard drive space, Data Recovery Software would be needing a large amount of time to scan the hard drives and recover the files. So scanning high capacity hard drives is a challenge for Data Recovery companies. They have to come up with some new technology to face the challenge. This would be going to more tougher as there are many more companies who are coming up with more high capacity hard drives.

Stellar Information, A data recovery company, having an experience of around 15 years in the field of data recovery have came in front with his new updated software which uses very advance algorithm to perform high speed scanning. The scanning speed of Stellar Phoenix Windows Data recovery Software – A Window Partition Recovery utility is more than 100% faster than any other data recovery software available in the market.

WHAT NEXT after 1 TB?

While we are yet to come to terms with the terabyte, computer scientists are doing massive research and development to enable larger storage platforms. Efforts are underway to create new data storage platforms having capacities upwards of 1000 TB. One Indian scientist is working on making DVD's which can be coated with a light -sensitive protein and can store up to 50 terabytes (about 50,000 gigabytes) of data.

Going by these estimates, it is imaginable that data densities are soon set to reach unthinkable proportions and data recovery services will definitely become more complex by the day. Data backups and recovery services need an overhaul for this. But one thing is sure….no matter what…….the terabyte drives have definitely given us what we desperately needed-- a peek into future of data storage technology. It is time we prepare ourselves for larger data storage and efficient data recovery methods.