Hitachi Global Storage is expected to announce a big breakthrough in storage technology which will allow much more data to be stored on a hard drive.

The changes will allow up to 4.5GB of information to be stored per square centimetre, versus a little over 2.9GB per centimetre today.

HGS reckons the drives will be ready for the public by the end of 2007. Hard drives today store information using longtitudinal recording - the head reads, and records, to one disc horizontally.

But new drives will store information using perpendicular recording - data will be stored vertically which means discs can be used more efficiently, according to CNet.

The changeover will allow Hitachi to squeeze 20GB of storage onto a device with a diameter of 2.5cm. A larger, 8.9cm drive for desktops will hold a terabyte of data. The company is testing the technology with some employees and their families at the moment.

Other companies including Toshiba are working on similar products.®

Related stories

Toshiba unveils 80GB 'iPod drive'
Fuji unveils 0.8in hard disk
Hitachi lobs lawsuit at Chinese disk drive maker