Archives:IEEE Transactions on Magnetics Historical Articles

The IEEE Magnetics Society (IEEE MagSoc) has in its publication IEEE Transactions on Magnetics featured articles on history. The ETHW has partnered with the IEEE Magnetics Society to make those particularly articles free to the public on IEEE Xplore, which is IEEE’s digital library that delivers access to the world's highest quality technical literature in engineering and technology. The abstracts and links for the Transactions on Magnetics collection appear below.

Hoagland, A.S.
July, 2003 History of magnetic disk storage based on perpendicular magnetic recording
This paper reviews a major disk-drive product development effort in IBM during the 1950s, one that was originally based on perpendicular recording. The goal of the project, identified as the Advanced Disk File (ADF), was to develop the successor to the first disk drive, the Random Access Method of Accounting and Control (RAMAC) 350. The ADF eventually became the IBM 1301, the first disk drive to use a flying head per surface. Whereas the RAMAC used longitudinal recording, the ADF project chose perpendicular recording as the mainstream recording technology for magnetic disk data storage and continued on this path for a period of five years. A crisis arose in the later stages of prototype testing due to unacceptable failure rates; one decision made was to change the recording method from perpendicular back to longitudinal. The reasons for the original selection of perpendicular and the subsequent return to longitudinal recording are described and address technology, product, and business issues. General observations on factors influencing the choices made and the final outcome are offered as well as the long-term impact of these events on the disk-drive industry.

Schirle, N.; Lieu, D.F.
May, 1996 History and trends in the development of motorized spindles for hard disk drives
Sensitivities of motor parameters important in determining cogging torque and radial imbalance force are shown using finite element modeling. These factors along with optimization of efficiency, methods for minimizing acoustics and optimizing heat transfer are of increased importance for future high performance spindles and disk drive designs. Factors including cost and power density are expected to slow the pace of form factor size reduction for high performance disk drives. Consequently, the benefit of improved dynamics through continued size reduction would not be realized at recent rates. This increases the need for improved spindle dynamics and performance. Spindle speeds will continue to increase to improve performance, although at a slower pace