Study: HDDs Headed for the Bargain Bin, Not Obsolescence
Posted 10/26/09 at 08:39:46 AM by Paul Lilly
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Maybe not next year, or even the year after, but sometime in the not too distant future, mainstream storage duties are destined to make the jump from mechanical hard drives to flash-based SSDs, right? Not according to a new study published in a recent issue of IEEE Transactions on Magnetics. Not only are hard drives in it for the long haul, but the cost to storage ratio will shrink dramatically, the study suggests.
Some would argue it already has, but study authors Professor Mark Kryder and PhD student Chang Soo Kim of Carnegie Mellon University predict that by the year 2020, a two-disk, 2.5-inch HDD with 14TB of storage capacity will run a mere $40. And if that weren't enough to keep mechanical storage media relevant into the next decade and beyond, the duo also suggest that flash memory technology will run into technical roadblocks that will halt its continued scaling before 2020.
The predictions surprised even the study's authors, who set out to examine 13 up-and-coming nonvolatile memory (NVM) technologies and see if one of them had the potential to leapfrog HDDs on a cost-per-terabyte basis by 2020.
"We were surprised to find that the study indicated that, even in 2020, hard drives were likely to be considerably less expensive on a cost per terabyte basis than any of the competing technologies," Kryder told PhysOrg.com. "It was also somewhat surprising to find that the technical potential of a technology was not necessarily well-correlated with where the industry was investing the most dollars; rather, industrial firms are tending to invest where they have they most know-how. This is not necessarily the wisest decision, but is quite understandable."
Before dismissing the findings as unlikely, it should be noted that Kryder previously served as CTO for Seagate, so he's at least familiar with the storage sector. Nevertheless, do you see HDDs standing in the spotlight for another decade?
Image Credit: simbaint.com
Wrong question.
Submitted by JohnP on Tue, 10/27/2009 - 1:22pm
The right question is what devices will be using hard drives in the future? smartphones? Cloud storage? NAS boxes? Consoles? Autos?
What about...
Submitted by OddManOut on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 11:05am
Ok, HDDs will be around for a while longer for mass storage. SSDs will emerge as the viable and speedy boot disk.
Desktop computers will have no problem with this type of setup (I already have it). The problem is that most laptops/netbooks/notebooks can only hold one drive. Therefore, I forsee a hybrid HDD/SSD drive that is either explicitly partitioned or has smart partitioning that allows OS/frequently used files to be placed on the SSD and the rest on the HDD. It could happen.
Disagree
Submitted by K0BALT on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 9:34am
Who the hell needs 14TB? If you target the average consumer, does that mean a simple 1TB drive will cost not even $10? I dunno...... I'm making the switch to SSD's soon.
Submitted by xchrissypoox on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 2:59pm
In the future everything will be digital maybe. so then we would have a lot more drm loaded movies on our hard drives. Games are getting into the teens in GB which is pretty big, they could be in the X0s or X00s by then (as I recall MGS4 uses a whole 50GB disc though thats playstation). Its all speculation but I'd say 14GB then would be about as much overkill as 1TB now, its room to grow.
Submitted by The Relic on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 12:21pm
I remember thinking that when I got my first HDD..."How am I gonna fill up 10MB?" Right now I have a 120GB as my main drive and a 1TB as my storage drive, and I still have a lot of room still on both, but with games getting bigger and bigger size-wise...
I hope to eventually go with an SSD boot drive, once the prices come down myself.
Submitted by rseding91 on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 7:22am
It could happen.
A year ago i bought a 750 GB hard drive for $160(the cheapest at the time) and now you can get 1.5 TB hard drives for $120 - or less if you want to lower the cache or RPMs.
at $160 for 750 GB it's - 21¢ per GB
at $120 for 1500 GB it's - 8¢ per GBIt would seem that if this keeps up a 14TB hard drive for $40 doesn't sound that far-fetched.
I like your math
Submitted by Havok on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 8:44am
But these'let's peer into a crystal ball' ways of thinking don't solve practical problems. Think about it. Would you have waited a whole extra year to buy a 1.5 terabyte drive for around 140-ish dollars? I know I wouldn't. I'd still have gotten the 750 gb, THEN bought the 1.5 later and would have popped both into a server or raid array. If 'analysts' or what not are always saying 'oh, but wait, next year things will be cheaper', no one would buy any hardware. With a melting economy, buying anything helps and will help it get back on it's feet.
CLICK.
You're
Submitted by Taz0 on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 9:23am
You're completely missing the point. It's not about "waiting" for the next jump in capacity of lower prices or whatever. That's short term. The article is about the long term - whether flash memory is truly a viable, sustainable and affordable technology for mass storage, or more accurately, whether it can compete with magnetic storage in the long run.
Submitted by Havok on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 7:07am
Yes and we can all be Futureist's and predict that in the year 2057, we'll all have AMD Optics Implanted into our eyes for a Virtual reality experience. Seriously, I hate this 'we fore-see the future of techology!' crap. Just like what Gordon said, "No one will be around to tell them they were full of sh-"
CLICK.
No one will be around in
Submitted by nekollx on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 9:03am
No one will be around in 12 years?
------------------------------
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Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
Submitted by DogPatch1149 on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 6:28am
HDDs may not be headed for obsolescence, but those FDDs in the picture certainly are.
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