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> I'm suspect there would be a market for storage devices with twice the volume and 50% or more storage. Or does the 3.5" form factor have something to do with

> I'm suspect there would be a market for storage devices with twice the volume and 50% or more storage. Or does the 3.5" form factor have something to do with the limitations of spinning rust tech? There used to be larger form factors for HDs, for instance full-height 5.25 inch (think two DVD drives stacked on top of each other). This Wikipedia page has pictures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disk_drive_form_factors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disk_drive_form_factor... This was apparently a product that took the strategy you described in the 90s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Bigfoot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Bigfoot

dehrmann 6y ago
There might be issues with Bigfoot-like drives with platter stability at the edges, but I have no idea if this is actually the case. What I do know is you get better performance towards the edge of the platters, and for larger drives, the variability in throughput might be a downside for some buyers. Seeks times are also slower. There was a variant of the WD Raptor that took the opposite approach: it put a 2.5" 10k RPM drive in a 3.5" enclosure, but this drive played the role SSDs do today; they weren't for mass storage.