What's next with HDDs?

[Markstar]

I realize that the manufacturers have their hands full with getting their production up to speed again, but I wonder if they use this opportunity to increase the density again or if we have to accept 3 and 4TB drives for a lot longer.

Back in October, there were rumors of 5TB drives which were supposed to be unveiled at the CES - e.g. see here http://www.tomshardware.com/news/5TB-platters-GoFlex-Barracuda-GITEX-2011,13693.html . Even though that would not use a higher platter density, it would still be a step in the right direction imo.

What do you think? How will the current situation influence R&D?

 

[Soulkeeper]

I think the days of massive density increases are behind us for magnetic storage
over the last 6+ years we've gone from 320GB -> 500GB -> 1TB platters
so maybe another year or two and we see ~1.3TB platters ?
I really havn't seen any news/headlines about the next big thing

Most drives are still migrating to 1TB platters

 

[exdeath]

Platters are dead, just like reel to reel, 8 tracks, VHS, and every other form of slow and unreliable mechanical magnetic storage. Seagate and WD better learn to start making flash memory or they will go the way of Kodak.

And they know it. That's why prices are being propped up and capacity increases are on the back burner despite the floods being long past and over. They realize they've been giving away too much for too little and now it's just going to be one last hoorah to maximize profits while they can before SSDs take over.

They saw SSDs getting away with it (high cost low capacity) and couldn't bear it. The days of high capacity and low prices are long over. The flooding was just a convenient catalyst to feel out the market. Just like gas prices, people will moan about it, but in the end they will still buy them eventually anyway, so why lower prices?

 

[SpeedTester]

Platters are dead, just like reel to reel, 8 tracks, VHS, and every other form of slow and unreliable mechanical magnetic storage. Seagate and WD better learn to start making flash memory or they will go the way of Kodak.

And they know it. That's why prices are being propped up and capacity increases are on the back burner despite the floods being long past and over. They realize they've been giving away too much for too little and now it's just going to be one last hoorah to maximize profits while they can before SSDs take over.

They saw SSDs getting away with it (high cost low capacity) and couldn't bear it. The days of high capacity and low prices are long over. The flooding was just a convenient catalyst to feel out the market. Just like gas prices, people will moan about it, but in the end they will still buy them eventually anyway, so why lower prices?

I disagree that platters are dead. Until ssd drives can match or come close to platters in price and capacity they aren't going anywhere. I have 6tb in my main pc along with 128gbs of ssd space and need the platter space for movies.

 

[exdeath]

How long have HDDs been out? How long did it take to break 1 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB? How long did it take for 2.5" HDDs to break 500 GB?

How long have SSDs been out? 2.5" SSD are already past 500 GB. Capacity will be catching up in the next two years easily.

The only thing that remains is price. Price is only high because it's the "new" thing in town and profit margins are absolutely through the roof as they are on any new trendy fasionable desireable tech. Once it becomes mainstream and prices stabalize, HDDs don't stand a chance.

Not going to happen tomorrow... but HDDs days are numbered.

 

[groberts101]

2 years?... ROFLMAO.. don't hold your breath on that one.

SpeedTester has a pretty big clue here and you'd lose your ass on the bet that there will be 4TB SSD's competing with similar capacity HDD in that timeline.

We'll be lucky if SSD reach's $500 for 1TB in the next 2 years. An HDD of the same capacity will be $50 and you still won't see many SSD based storage solutions for casual/typical users due to that fact alone.

 

[SpeedTester]

2 years?... ROFLMAO.. don't hold your breath on that one.

SpeedTester has a pretty big clue here and you'd lose your ass on the bet that there will be 4TB SSD's competing with similar capacity HDD in that timeline.

We'll be lucky if SSD reach's $500 for 1TB in the next 2 years. An HDD of the same capacity will be $50 and you still won't see many SSD based storage solutions for casual/typical users due to that fact alone.

I can't agree with you more. And if you take into consideration that company's like dell,hp and gateway sell so many sub $500 computer where every penny counts as their profit you wont be seeing ssd 's going in many if not any of that market share.

 

[Rifter]

2 years?... ROFLMAO.. don't hold your breath on that one.

SpeedTester has a pretty big clue here and you'd lose your ass on the bet that there will be 4TB SSD's competing with similar capacity HDD in that timeline.

We'll be lucky if SSD reach's $500 for 1TB in the next 2 years. An HDD of the same capacity will be $50 and you still won't see many SSD based storage solutions for casual/typical users due to that fact alone.

100% this, ex's timeline is a pipe dream.

 

[groberts101]

OK.. I was laughing too hard at ex's post I forgot to actually give my opinion on the OP's question.

My guess is larger cache being implemented for faster burst speeds. Maybe 128MB or even up to 256MB or more?

Then from there we'll see more hybrid cached HDD being introduced. Flash induced speed increases just cannot be ignored by HDD if they want to compete and they will surely take advantage of the lower hardware prices just like the mfgrs of SSD will.

Plus.. who wouldn't want an entry level laptop with hybrid HDD if the cost is almost exactly the same as regular HDD equipped models?

People want cheap.. but they want it to be as fast as possible in the process as well and Hybrid drives will allow that gap to be bridged more easily.

 

[gorydetails]

not a true,,,raid several ssds and u got hdd capacity,,,

 

[Sho'Nuff]

I think the days of massive density increases are behind us for magnetic storage
over the last 6+ years we've gone from 320GB -> 500GB -> 1TB platters
so maybe another year or two and we see ~1.3TB platters ?
I really havn't seen any news/headlines about the next big thing

Most drives are still migrating to 1TB platters

There is still room to increase density in magnetic storage. The big jumps might be over (for now), but there are a lot of tweaks that can be made to perpendicular media (the magnetic recording layers in all hard drives today are manufactured with their grains oriented perpendicular to the plane of the drive) to increase density. For example, the major companies are still finding alloys that can shrink grain size and reduce intergranular exchange coupling. As long as new alloys continue to be found, density will continue to increase.

<------------- A long time ago, I used to examine magnetic recording media patent applications for the patent office. So I have more than a passing knowledge about MRM technology.

 

[groberts101]

not a true,,,raid several ssds and u got hdd capacity,,,

LOL.. at what price though?

I think you missed the point maybe?

 

[scannall]

Platters are dead, just like reel to reel, 8 tracks, VHS, and every other form of slow and unreliable mechanical magnetic storage. Seagate and WD better learn to start making flash memory or they will go the way of Kodak.

And they know it. That's why prices are being propped up and capacity increases are on the back burner despite the floods being long past and over. They realize they've been giving away too much for too little and now it's just going to be one last hoorah to maximize profits while they can before SSDs take over.

They saw SSDs getting away with it (high cost low capacity) and couldn't bear it. The days of high capacity and low prices are long over. The flooding was just a convenient catalyst to feel out the market. Just like gas prices, people will moan about it, but in the end they will still buy them eventually anyway, so why lower prices?

Back when hard drives hit 100 megabytes, oh so long ago. People were completely sure that they really couldn't get much bigger.

The first hard drive I bought was 10 Megabytes. For the low price of $1500.

Hard drives will be around for many more years. SSD's may make bigger inroads into the market. And I can see more and more computers using them as boot/application drives. But for mass storage SSD's aren't even close.

 

[Soulkeeper]

There is still room to increase density in magnetic storage. The big jumps might be over (for now), but there are a lot of tweaks that can be made to perpendicular media (the magnetic recording layers in all hard drives today are manufactured with their grains oriented perpendicular to the plane of the drive) to increase density. For example, the major companies are still finding alloys that can shrink grain size and reduce intergranular exchange coupling. As long as new alloys continue to be found, density will continue to increase.

<------------- A long time ago, I used to examine magnetic recording media patent applications for the patent office. So I have more than a passing knowledge about MRM technology.

nice to hear.

so you think we'll see doubling of capacity like we have in the past ?
ie: 10GB -> 20GB -> 40GB
I have doubts that trend can be reclaimed myself, or that it's even a cost effective priority

 

[BFG10K]

HDDs aren’t dead by a long shot. The next big leap looks to be heat assisted magnetic recording. After that, things will probably move to nano storage.

 

[Jetster...]

Platters arnt goin anywhere soon. You will see DVD and CD disks go first. Too replace them will be flash memory. Flash memory cant touch patter sizes yet not even close

 

[IndyColtsFan]

100% this, ex's timeline is a pipe dream.

About a year ago, I paid $187 for an Intel 120 GB X25-M SSD and that was a good sale price on Newegg at the time. Regular price was, IIRC, $220 at the time (or maybe $200).

The same retail kit for the 120 GB Intel 320 Series is $199 at Newegg. If I had to guess, by this time next year, we'll see 120 GB drives going for around what an 80 GB drive goes for today. So yeah, the timeline ex gave earlier won't happen. We're not going to have multi-terabyte SSDs for around $300 like we do with hard drives by 2014. You might see a 1 TB SSD flirting with the $400-$500 range by then but you're not going to see a 4 TB SSD going for the current price of $400 for a 4 TB hard drive.

 

[randomrogue]

Those thinking they are going away must be very young. Hard drives have consistently grown in size as well as reliability and speed for decades now. My first hard drive was 20MB.

By the time everyone is buying 4TB drives I'm sure they'll have something bigger. Most of us aren't even using 3TB drives. Most people aren't even using 1TB. Go to your neighbor, SO, teacher, boss, friend, etc and check their computer. They're mostly using a hundred GB at best. On the flip side SSD's are still very expensive, small, and in my experience unreliable. I honestly don't trust my data on one and will wait a while longer before purchasing another one. The only thing they have going for them, imo, is that their size is not really a limiting factor for most people since like I said above most people aren't using several TB worth of space.

 

[Zap]

It will never happen... but what I'd like to see is another Quantum Bigfoot style drive.

See, here's my thinking... Many computers have extra 5¼" bays that sit unused. What if there was a huge capacity drive that can be shoehorned in there? It only has to be fast enough to be able to stream HD media, as long as it has huge capacity and is cheap. Give me 30TB for $300 and I can find a single spare 5¼" bay in my rig.

But, yeah, regarding the OP I think just increasing (maybe smaller) capacity, bigger cache, maybe more hybrids.