Hard Disks
Platinum coated computer hard drive disks.
Platinum and data storage
The need for modern computers to store very large amounts of information has brought a rapid increase in the use of platinum to improve the data storage capacity of hard disks. The first hard disk drive, introduced by IBM in 1957, used fifty disks, each measuring 24 inches in diameter, to store just 5 megabytes of data. Nowadays, PC hard disks are available which can store 125 gigabytes (125,000 megabytes) of data, and capacity is increasing all the time. Manufacturers aim to continually reduce the average number of hard disks in each drive, so technology which can offer denser data storage is eagerly sought after.
Inside a hard disk
A hard disk drive looks and operates much like an old fashioned record player. Information is recorded and retrieved by a magnetic head mounted on a moveable arm, which hovers over a rapidly spinning disk. Each drive contains one or more disks; the disks in desktop PCs are usually made of aluminium, whereas high quality glass is often used for disks in laptop computers.
The disks are coated with a cobalt based alloy which has magnetic properties. This magnetic layer stores individual pieces of data, or "bits", in a series of circular tracks. The amount of data which can be recorded on a given surface area depends largely upon the strength of the field generated by the magnetic layer. Adding platinum enhances the magnetic qualities of the cobalt alloy, enabling data to be stored at higher densities and improving access times.
All disks contain platinum
Information storage requirements continue to expand at rapid rates, fuelled by the growing use of computers for video and audio applications. Today, all hard disks contain platinum in their magnetic layers, compared with around 50 per cent in 1997. The proportion of platinum in the magnetic alloy has been increasing steadily over time, from less than 10 per cent five years ago to over 35 per cent, on average, today.
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So why not use some disks from hardives as electrodes?
I think i will give it try soon. Anybody done this?
Steve