Question 15000

[Igo69]

I just noticed that there are 15000 rpms HDDs, how come there are no high capacity Hdds with that speed?

I used to have WD 1tb 10000 rpm and it was pretty good hard drive but i replaced it with much higher capacity SSD.

I would love to have one of those for storage and back up.

 

[Billy Tallis]

15k and 10k RPM drives are technological dead-ends now that SSDs are affordable. They're not going to get the latest improvements like helium-filled drives with the latest advanced multi-stage actuators, or packing 9 platters into a drive. Also, many if not most high-RPM hard drives used smaller platters (eg. 2.5") even when the drive was externally 3.5". That reduces seek distance and spindle motor power requirements.

Those drives never made sense for general-purpose storage, and especially not for backup duty.

 

[Igo69]

High capacity SSD are not affordable. 4TB SSD is around $500 and that is the cheapest price. IF I want to get above 4tb ssd they cost in thousands of dollars.

 

[Ajay]

I would love to have one of those for storage and back up.

Why would you need high speed drives for storage and backup? Even a 7200rpm HDD is pretty good for reasonably quick backups (where you'd likely be limited by Ethernet bandwidth anyway).

 

[UsandThem]

Why would you need high speed drives for storage and backup? Even a 7200rpm HDD is pretty good for reasonably quick backups (where you'd likely be limited by Ethernet bandwidth anyway).

Heck, even 5400 RPM hard drives are enough for me for doing backups as long as I have the enclosure plugged into a USB 3.1 Gen 2 port.

Plus not to mention HDD sales continue to fall, while SSD sales are going up. I don't think any of the remaining HDD companies would want to sink additional resources into R&D, because something like a 15,000 RPM drive (which would have such a small demand/customer base). In fact, I just saw an article over on Tom's about that very thing.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/hdd-shipments-tank-as-industry-changes

 

[thecoolnessrune]

High capacity SSD are not affordable. 4TB SSD is around $500 and that is the cheapest price. IF I want to get above 4tb ssd they cost in thousands of dollars.

The highest performance and capacity tiers will always cost more. A Seagate 900GB 15K RPM Disk (about as large as the 15K spinners got), is a bit less than $300 a disk. That's a lot of disks to get to something like 4TB. Part of the 15K rotation speed is 2.5" over 3.5" form factors. the old 3.5" form factors took a serious about of power. A 3.5" 15K spinner might make it to 4TB, but I guarantee you there's 0 chance you'd get one for $500. Or even $1,000 new.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Honestly, I don't see the point.

high-RPM HDDs (which necessarily used 2.5" platters, because of physics - the platters would shatter at that high an RPM, if they were the standard 3.5" platters), were always for HIGH IOPS. Something that an SSD handily does these days.

They were never for high sequential transfer rates, due to the smaller, lower-density platters. A larger, even slower-RPM (like 5400/5900RPM) drive with a HIGH PLATTER DENSITY, as in, today's HDDs that can push over 200MB/sec or 240MB/sec sequential, is actually preferable, especially for a task like backup.

Just get a NAS, stock it with drives, and call it a day. Unless you're running an enterprise DB or VM server, in which case, you've got a SAN with a support contract from the Big Guys (Dell/EMC/IBM/HP/others), and they handle your IOPS needs.

 

[Micrornd]

high-RPM HDDs (which necessarily used 2.5" platters, because of physics - the platters would shatter at that high an RPM, if they were the standard 3.5" platters), were always for HIGH IOPS.

For some reason I thought you were older than that
FYI - 15k HDDs, as well as 18kHDDs were around as SCSI and SAS (15k only) 3.5" drives before the 2.5" versions in each of their categories. Downsizing to 2.5" gave a slight increase in I/O and miniscule increase in access time (based on less physical head movement), but the major advantage was a decrease in heat output from a smaller rotational mass and also gave some sound reduction.
15ks had their place in RAID5 and 10 arrays (and could "push" more than the 200-240 you mention per individual drive).
Rotational speed of the platters was never a "shattering" issue and speeds of 24k and even 30k were prototyped, 15k was settled on based on a cost (profit) vs performance vs longevity, although some 18k drives were released for a while also.
They were expensive to make and many newer drives can equal their performance with a much higher profit ratio for the manufacturers thanks to newer (cheaper) HDD technology.

 

[VirtualLarry]

For some reason I thought you were older than that

Can you point me to a link to 15K RPM HDDs, with an actual platter size larger than 2.5"? I know that they came in 3.5" HDD standard cases. I was talking actual platter size.

 

[mxnerd]

3.5" HDD actually is 4" wide with platter sizes range from 2.5" to 3.74"

Form Factors of hard disk drive - Data Recovery Salon

Most hard disks are designed to be installed on the inside of the PC, and are produced in one of a dozen or so standard sizes and shapes. These standards

www.datarecoverytools.co.uk

==
To OP:

15000 rpm drive is extremely hot, noisy and will go bad easily if not properly cooled , it also can't withstand sudden drop or vibration.

Yeah, it's a dead end tech.

 

[Micrornd]

Can you point me to a link to 15K RPM HDDs, with an actual platter size larger than 2.5"? I know that they came in 3.5" HDD standard cases. I was talking actual platter size.

No, I can't give you a link, as those spec sheets are long departed and the OEMs never revealed platter diameter, and rarely density and quantity for either form factor.
Platter diameter is a spec that is still almost impossible to find from the OEMs.
The only real way is to open one up and measure.

And yeah, it's dead tech, except for the retro crowd

 

[aigomorla]

High capacity SSD are not affordable. 4TB SSD is around $500 and that is the cheapest price. IF I want to get above 4tb ssd they cost in thousands of dollars.

ok first off, high cap ssd's are mostly directed at the enterprise sector, where a couple thousand is considered play money. Its like how audiophiles will treat a 10k dollar amp.

Also 15K serves no purpose as others said, are also very expensive to make due to the motor and balancing of platters, not to mention they are LOUD.

That should give you a example of how not quiet these guys are.
No one in the right mind would use 15k for consumer applications over a SSD.

Lastly SATA even will probably phase out soon in favor of nVME.
Yes they are expensive as heck in the higher cap ends, but they will toast SATA and SAS on a multiplicative factor.

 

[Ajay]

3.5" HDD actually is 4" wide with platter sizes range from 2.5" to 3.74"

Form Factors of hard disk drive - Data Recovery Salon

Most hard disks are designed to be installed on the inside of the PC, and are produced in one of a dozen or so standard sizes and shapes. These standards

www.datarecoverytools.co.uk

Oh, thanks for reminding me of one of the most annoying 'standards'. I forgot that recently and got stumped "hmm, I don't have any 3.5 inch sleds...D'oh!".

 

[nosirrahx]

Tiered storage kind of killed this. How much would it cost for 512GB SATA SSD, 10TB HDD and Primocache?

The cheapest and biggest 15,000RPM drive on newegg is 900GB and $200. To reach 10TB you would need 11 of them and some kind of annoying and/or fragile setup to turn all of them into a single logical drive. There is just no way to justify high RPM in a new build.

 

[bigboxes]

There is just no way to justify high RPM in a new build.

They're not needed for storage. If you need speed get an SSD. They are cheap to add even for a secondary drive. Why anyone with a modern computer doesn't have an SSD for their OS drive is beyond me. It's like that 15k drive but faster like a magnitude. I use a lot of HDDs for storage, but every computer I have has at least an OS for the boot drive and programs. We're not talking old tech here. SSDs have been out for over ten years and are quite affordable. There's no going back.