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Get Perpendicular

Name: Get Perpendicular
Description: A Hitachi promotional cartoon in the style of Schoolhouse Rock explaining perpendicular magnetic recording for hard drives.

teraera08 Explainers partly dated

Open on YouTube First HN thread

2 HN users recommended this explainer in 2 different months between 2011 and 2026.

2007–2026

2 recommendations 2 citations 1 joke HackerTube score 2

Remembered fondly as a fun, memorable animated explanation of how perpendicular disk storage works.

A Hitachi promotional cartoon in the style of Schoolhouse Rock explaining perpendicular magnetic recording for hard drives.

Pull quote: “It's a simple concept to explain, but animation sure makes it fun and lasting.” (HN, 2023)

Also tagged: hard drive technology, perpendicular recording, hitachi, hard drives, animation, schoolhouse rock

What Hacker News said

5 labeled comments from the HN archive; up to 20 are kept per video, favoring different commenters. Each one links back to the original thread.

Recommends pcurve January 2023 under Ask HN: What's your favorite illustration in Computer Science?

Animated explanation of perpendicular disc storage.

maybe not CS concepts, but wanted to re-share Perpendicular disc storage from Hitachi. [this video] It's a simple concept to explain, but animation sure makes it fun and lasting.

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Recommends staticshock May 2026 under What Is Z-Angle Memory and Why Is Intel Developing It?

That song is etched into my memory and bring back a flood of great feelings. Daily Motion is giving me a playback error, but here's a copy from youtube: [this video]

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Citations, criticism and jokes

Cites it jamesbressi March 2011 under Western digital acquires Hitachi Global Storage Tech for $4.3B

Maybe you forgot this? Hitachi School House Rock video... [this video] "Get Perpendicular" Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.

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Cites it basch April 2020 under Western Digital admits 2TB-6TB WD Red NAS drives use shingled magnetic recording

Hitachi's Schoolhouse Rock style perpendicular recording commercial.

That's what I'm wondering though. Nearly all the WD data center drives are marketed as Ultrastar. Is this marketing, or did the HGST entity supplant WD enterprise during "integration" in the last two years? [link] It looks like the only surviving product names are Ultrastar and CinemaStar. Nothing is labeled HGST anymore. Most of the HGST Helium disks were SMR, if I'm not mistaken. As of now, given the two HelioSeal series, one of the two is SMR. Side Note: Hitachi had such a great thing going with their Schoolhouse Rock meets Dino DNA commercial. I wish this would have continued. [this video]

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Makes a joke nly December 2013 under The Moore's Law blowout sale is ending

> or if we radically change the fabrication process and turn transistors sideways This reminded me so much of this: [this video]

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