Toshiba has first perpendicular hard drive ever, it claims. Though this may not be entirely accurate, as one company has disputed, Toshiba is one of the first to both have and released such technology. The 1.8” MK4006GAH disc, designed for portable devices such as media players, stores a massive 40GB – On a single platter. The other 40GB offering from Toshiba requires 2 platters to do this, and in fact the majority of micro drives of this size require 2- or 3-platter designs. Perpendicular storage is a method of storing information on the disc by aligning data vertically (as opposed to laying and reading the data parallel to the platter) on the disc, which increases storage capacity, because you can use more of the same physical space. Most manufacturers are developing perpendicular drives for consumer use and likely within a year we will see them starting to become commonplace.