Component manufacturer Hitachi has found that using an iridium alloy has greatly increased the reliability of some of its hard drives.

It found that using the metal alloyed with manganese and chromium doubled the reliability of the drives able to incorporate it.

The iridium alloy, which also contains a small amount of ruthenium, is used to form the read-head of the drive, replacing a platinum-manganese alloy used in earlier drives.

The read head was able to read data more reliably than previous types even in conditions of extreme temperature variances, humidity and shock.

"Hitachi has worked closely with customers to implement the new IrMnCr read sensors, which have shown tremendous success both in laboratory tests and in the field," said Mohammed Krounbi, vice president of head engineering of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.

The new read head has also been a crucial part of the company's successful development of its first perpendicular hard drive, the Travelstar 5K160.

Ÿ Adfero Ltd