Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has announced its 160GB Travelstar 5K160, Hitachi's first perpendicular hard drive.

The drive sports a read head, sort of like a needle on a phonograph arm, composed of iridium, manganese, chromium and a minute amount of ruthenium. Iridium and manganese anchor the read head's internal magnet in a more stable fashion than the platinum-manganese alloy often used in drives from other manufacturers, Hitachi said.

As a result, the read sensor is less prone to be thrown off by heat, cold or shock, forces that become magnified in effect as the read head and other components shrink in size. (Hitachi also uses the iridium formula on its standard drives.)

The changes let the company increase the areal density or the amount of data that can be squeezed into a finite space, without increasing the risk of errors.