History (1998): Paradigm Seeks Buyer for Idea

An old idea has returned (momentarily?) to the order of the day: the multi-actuator.

There is, in effect, enough room into a HDD to place not 1 but 2 actuators, the components that support the sliders and their tiny magnetic heads.

Paul Gilovich, a storage industry veteran, given his 15 years at IBM (notably with Al Shugart, on the world’s first HDD, the Ramac}, has filed 2 patents recently, for an idea he hopes to sell through Paradigm Storage, where he holds a VP post (Paradigm is a sister company to PC Peripherals, both located in Broomfield, CO, the latter a hard disk drive distributor].

Of course, Gilovich’s concept is somewhat different from what we’ve seen before. Today’s disk drives have both up and down facing heads on a single actuator. With Paradigm Technology, all up facing heads are on one actuator while all down facing heads are on the other actuator (see graphic). By grouping like heads, it is possible to reduce the space between each platter by half, which yields not only a reduction in the total thickness of the device or the potential to place twice the platters in the same space, but also even better performance.

In fact, since the two positioners are independent and can have their own read/write channel, it is now possible to read and write simultaneously and have overlap seeks.

For the exclusive rights of this invention, Paradigm is asking $1 million along with 2% of the manufacturer’s price of each HDD, according to Paradigm (and PC Peripherals) COB and CEO, Jess Parker

The same formula (but with a different concept} of a multi-actuator drive was tested on the first IBM Ramacs in 1956, but was never adopted by Big Blue, who instead applied the notion to its DASD 3320 and 3390 models. An early patent was filed, moreover, by Golovich et al. in 1981.

Others have been submitted since, in particular by John Squires in 1993, who was once with Conner Peripherals, but also by Steve Kaczeus, the current CTO at JTS. Aura Associates was demonstrating a 4 actuator drive prototype at Comdex 1988. Conner Peripherals, in its day, announced its own model, the 5.25-inch form factor Chinook, which comprised 3.5-inch diameter platters and 2 double headed actuators, but which never really took off.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 120 on January 1998 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.

Note: Seagate has recently incorporated this dual-actuator technology into some of its HDDs currently on the market.