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As Seagate and Western Digital push towards 20TB, glass substrates could be a critical component of that effort: Hoya Corp. currently supplies glass substrates for 2.5-inch HDDs but believes that the industry will adopt this same material for 3.5-inch high-capacity drives. Glass substrates provide a number of advantages over aluminum, such as rigidity (thinner, lighter platters that can be spun with less energy and packed more tightly together) and less expansion under heat.
One of the advantages of glass substrates is that they have a higher rigidity than aluminum substrates and can be thinner than aluminum substrates, making it possible to increase the number of disks that can be stored in a case and increase the capacity. Hoya has already prototyped 0.5mm- and 0.381mm-thick substrates, enabling to house 10 and 12 substrates, respectively, in a 3.5-inch HDD whose thickness is about 1 inch.
One of the advantages of glass substrates is that they have a higher rigidity than aluminum substrates and can be thinner than aluminum substrates, making it possible to increase the number of disks that can be stored in a case and increase the capacity. Hoya has already prototyped 0.5mm- and 0.381mm-thick substrates, enabling to house 10 and 12 substrates, respectively, in a 3.5-inch HDD whose thickness is about 1 inch.