How long do you think we will see desktops having 3.5" hard drives for primary storage?

[cbn]

Right now there are plenty of budget desktops with a single 3.5" HDD for primary storage, including my favorite budget model below:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883101530&ignorebbr=1

http://www.frys.com/product/9109958?source=google&gclid=CMSm1oa8n9MCFUaTfgod5nIMMA

http://www.microcenter.com/product/474800/Aspire_ATC-780A-UR12_Desktop_Computer

But how much longer do think this will last?

P.S. How do you think systems with Optane will factor in? Currently this technology appears to be only available on Gaming machines from Boutique builders which start at $900 for 16GB Optane and 2TB HDD and $1000 for 32GB Optane and 3TB HDD:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883230241&ignorebbr=1

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...0446076&PID=3821802&SID=j8pc0zxj9e01045l00053

 

[cbn]

Do you think Intel will allow Optane to be used on desktops with the H310 chipset? (Currenty the lowest chipset for Optane is the B250, but I wonder if Intel is limiting only because H110 only has PCIe 2.0?)

Then again, Intel also limits Optane to Core i3 and better for no reason I can clearly identify.

 

[Elixer]

I don't see 3.5" spinners going away anytime soon, since they still are much cheaper per GB than anything else.

For 2.5" HDs, most OEMs rather have 1TB HDs than 256GB SSDs, since the specs look nicer.

I don't see Optane (or Xpoint) gaining much traction until the price comes way down.
Micron's version of Optane, Xpoint would be used if intel does something dumb, and limit it to certain platforms.

 

[mindless1]

I'm still wanting 5.25" HDDs to make a comeback. Uber performance I care little about when an SSD is the primary drive, just want massive capacity increases.

Besides, flash chip price:capacity stagnated. Many capacities of SSD cost more now than a year ago so if I were the type of person to buy an OEM system, I'd as soon have it come with a 120GB SSD and a 20TB 5.25" HDD.

 

[cbn]

One thing I feel fairly certain about is when 480GB/512GB SSDs become cheaper than the lowest capacity 3.5" HDD......HDDs will no longer be primary storage in most OEM desktops.

But then I wonder what about 240/256GB SSD? How many OEMs would switch to this if they were cheaper than the lowest capacity 3.5" HDD?

P.S. One thing I noticed when I did my RAID-0 experiment with two WD5000AZLX (each 500GB capacity, short stroked on 1TB platter) is that they were pretty fast when used for my OS.

So I'd imagine a 2TB 3.5" HDD based on a single 2TB MAMR platter would be just as fast, maybe even faster than my 2 x WD5000AZLX RAID-0. Not sure when such a 2TB MAMR drive would be released though? (I'm thinking probably around the time 240/256GB SSD are around $50. Though it wasn't too long ago that 240GB MLC SATA SSDs were $60)

 

[BFG10K]

I'm still wanting 5.25" HDDs to make a comeback.

Unlikely to happen for several reasons:

1. Big data corporations want to fit as many drives as possible into their storage racks.
2. There's a definite trend with consumer cases moving away from 5.25" bays.
3. Bigger platters have more momentum which means more chances of warping and/or disk pack imbalance.
   
4. Making them external would almost certainly require a power brick, which is a PITA.

 

[Johnny Lucky]

Yesterday there were several published news reports indicating that solid state drives will outsell hard drives by the year 2021.

I purchased my very first hard drive in 1985. It was a Seagate 10MB (not GB) model with an access time of 122 milliseconds. Here it is 32 years later and hard drives are still available.

 

[mindless1]

Unlikely to happen for several reasons:

1. Big data corporations want to fit as many drives as possible into their storage racks.
2. There's a definite trend with consumer cases moving away from 5.25" bays.
3. Bigger platters have more momentum which means more chances of warping and/or disk pack imbalance.
   
4. Making them external would almost certainly require a power brick, which is a PITA.

1. For Capacity
2. Because no 5.25" HDDs and fewer people use optical drives
3. It's been done already. Material advances and a little thicker platters, and possibly a sacrificial edge grind to rebalance.
4. Not a PITA if you want capacity over portability. Most if not all existing 3.5" already use one, and while 2.5" don't, I predict 2.5" HDD as the first form factor to leave the market due to SSDs.

At some point the HDD industry will run out of fancy tricks to increase density and need more surface area for capacity increases, or of course a move away from magnetics. I'd like a big capacity increase a few years sooner than that.

 

[BFG10K]

For Capacity

And equally for power consumption, heat, and physical space. Bigger drives are inherently inferior to smaller drives in all those respects, assuming all other things are equal.

It's been done already. Material advances and a little thicker platters, and possibly a sacrificial edge grind to rebalance.

Not at the same performance and areal density it hasn't. You can drop RPM on smaller drives and maintain equal to or better performance of bigger drives. It doesn't work in the opposite direction.

Not a PITA if you want capacity over portability. Most if not all existing 3.5" already use one, and while 2.5" don't, I predict 2.5" HDD as the first form factor to leave the market due to SSDs.

Portability is one of the main reasons of preferring HDDs over SSDs. Portable SSDs are horrifically more expensive than portable HDDs.

You talk about SSDs replacing HDDs, then say it's better to make 5.25" drives which would form a tiny fraction of current HDD use. 5.25" drives are basically useless. If you want more storage in a single physical box, buy a NAS box and fill it with smaller drives.

[At some point the HDD industry will run out of fancy tricks to increase density and need more surface area for capacity increases, or of course a move away from magnetics.

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/wd-announces-storage-breakthrough-mamr.2522406/

Likewise, the limits of NAND are fast approaching. You can see some of the effects of SSDs using el-cheapo TLC where the write performance is worse than many standard HDDs once the cache trickery fails. And you're paying 10x more per GB for that.

I'd like a big capacity increase a few years sooner than that.

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/wd-announces-storage-breakthrough-mamr.2522406/

 

[Chaotic42]

I think the days of consumer computers coming with HDDs by default are numbered. They'll be an option for quite a while, but the average consumer doesn't need 10TB of space. I am kind of curious if we'll soon see 3.5" SSDs as densities start to plateau.

 

[ch33zw1z]

They'll be around for a while. I still find customers buying them because reasons. And that's what matters. I'll say that it tends to be the 60+ crowd, but whatever.

 

[R0H1T]

I'm still wanting 5.25" HDDs to make a comeback. Uber performance I care little about when an SSD is the primary drive, just want massive capacity increases.

Besides, flash chip price:capacity stagnated. Many capacities of SSD cost more now than a year ago so if I were the type of person to buy an OEM system, I'd as soon have it come with a 120GB SSD and a 20TB 5.25" HDD.

I want my 3.5 inch SSD to cost no more than 200$ for 2TB, I don't care about HDD as they all seemingly fail absolutely randomly these days, also bad sectors

I think the days of consumer computers coming with HDDs by default are numbered. They'll be an option for quite a while, but the average consumer doesn't need 10TB of space. I am kind of curious if we'll soon see 3.5" SSDs as densities start to plateau.

I think we still have quite a few years before that happens, IIRC the first Samsung V NAND was 4x nm based, they haven't updated the info wrt the last few gen of SSD they've released.

They can easily go 3x or 2x nm & add more layers just as they did early on, so unless they're already on 2x nm for the 9xx series I'd say we have a good half decade before SSD density stops growing. Also +1 to 3.5 inch SSD, where art thou!

 

[whm1974]

I for one would like to see large SSDs at 1TB and 2TB sizes at reasonable prices. HDDs can't die out fast enough for me.

 

[cbn]

WD 4TB Red 3.5" 7200 rpm HDD vs. 16GB Optane + WD 4TB Red 3.5" 7200 rpm HDD (booting and opening apps timed with a stop watch):

Hard drive:

Boot 65 seconds
Office 10 seconds
Blizzard Battle.net 16 seconds
Overwatch 29 seconds

16GB Optane + Hard drive:

Boot 39 seconds
Office 2 to 3 seconds
Blizzard Battle.net 6 to7 seconds
Overwatch 17 to 18 seconds

Here is one with NVMe SSD and SATA SSD vs, WD Red Pro 4TB 3.5" HDD:

Samsung 960 EVO PCIe 3.0 x 4 NVMe M.2 SSD

Boot 6 seconds
Call of Duty Infinite Warefare 11 seconds
Civilization VI 43 seconds
Premiere Pro CC 6 seconds
Z-zip 61 seconds

Crucial MX300 SATA 2.5" SSD

Boot 9 seconds
Call of Duty Infinite Warefare 25 seconds
Civilization VI 53 seconds
Premiere Pro CC 11 seconds
Z-zip 251 seconds

WD Red Pro 4TB 3.5" 7200 rpm HDD

Boot 36 seconds
Call of Duty Infinite Warefare 53 seconds
Civilization VI 66 seconds
Premiere Pro CC 63 seconds
Z-zip 585 seconds

 

[mindless1]

^ Why do people even mention boot times? Back when I had HDDs running Windows, they'd suspend or sleep, and by not fresh booting, most things of significance were still cached in memory too. Boot times were the last thing that I cared about performance wise. Reloading large game levels on the other hand, was annoying with a HDD.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Boot times matter to many.

On my own desktop, I like the fast boot time because it dont the leave it running, and kill power to the whole setup while gone.

On the work laptop, it's great because it cut my boot time + startup times from 10 minutes to under a minute.

Here's so much software loading on it on boot that a 7200 2.5" inch drive about 10 minutes to boot and load to the point it's ready to use.

 

[mindless1]

^ 10 minutes? I would be in a padded room for bludgeoning people to death before that issue arose so essentially, non-issue, an

Regardless, hibernate? Booting makes no sense w/o a decent SSD unless there are OS files locked until a reboot.

Forget about 10 minutes though, on your own desktop there is hibernate and sleep. Boot shouldn't matter unless there is an unstable app or driver causing frequent reboot. I can accept that being the easy/lazy way to ignore a problem, but I wouldn't advocate that as a reason to universally pick one boot device over another.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I don't hibernate with the ssd.

I use sleep. But there's 1 or two employer issued reboots a week.

Big employer, doesn't give a shot what I think lol

On my own, I'm not keen in using hibernate on an ssd, and sleep isn't an option because I kill power to the whole thing.

Point being, boots times do matter to many.

 

[XavierMace]

^ 10 minutes? I would be in a padded room for bludgeoning people to death before that issue arose so essentially, non-issue, an

You've obviously never worked in a big corporate environment.

 

[whm1974]

You've obviously never worked in a big corporate environment.

Never have I but I have been around enough used PCs from big corporate environments that I know that there usually tons of crap installed that can cause them to take longer then 10 minutes to boot.

 

[Qasar]

10 mins to boot?? wow.. thats alot of things to load.. you cant disable some of it that isnt needed??

i guess i am one of the few that boot times mean nothing to me.... i also turn my comp off when i am not using it.. which is when i sleep.. the times i do start it up, or reboot.. i take the time to go the the can, grab a drink, or wash up after getting home from work.. so i dont even see it. by the time my comp is in windows.. im back from doing the above...

hibernate.. i disable able it.. frees up the space on the hdd, removes hiberfil.sys from the drive.... which could be 4 gigs or more of wasted space.. not much.. but still 4 gigs of space is still 4 gigs last time i disabled it.. my hiberfil.sys file was almost 7 gigs...

 

[ch33zw1z]

Unfortunately, there's only so much I can turn off.

Even after turning off anything g I can, there's over 100 processes running on a clean boot. Nothing can be done but ssd and more memory

 

[cbn]

I'm still wanting 5.25" HDDs to make a comeback. Uber performance I care little about when an SSD is the primary drive, just want massive capacity increases.

Besides, flash chip price:capacity stagnated. Many capacities of SSD cost more now than a year ago so if I were the type of person to buy an OEM system, I'd as soon have it come with a 120GB SSD and a 20TB 5.25" HDD.

Unlikely to happen for several reasons:

1. Big data corporations want to fit as many drives as possible into their storage racks.
2. There's a definite trend with consumer cases moving away from 5.25" bays.
3. Bigger platters have more momentum which means more chances of warping and/or disk pack imbalance.
   
4. Making them external would almost certainly require a power brick, which is a PITA.

1. For Capacity
2. Because no 5.25" HDDs and fewer people use optical drives
3. It's been done already. Material advances and a little thicker platters, and possibly a sacrificial edge grind to rebalance.
4. Not a PITA if you want capacity over portability. Most if not all existing 3.5" already use one, and while 2.5" don't, I predict 2.5" HDD as the first form factor to leave the market due to SSDs.

At some point the HDD industry will run out of fancy tricks to increase density and need more surface area for capacity increases, or of course a move away from magnetics. I'd like a big capacity increase a few years sooner than that.

Tape?

It does use the 5.25" form factor (example below):

https://www.hpe.com/us/en/product-catalog/storage/tape-drives-and-enclosures.hits-12.html

 

[ch33zw1z]

erm, tape isnt HDD, but ill concede the rest because its magnetic storage...lol

 

[cbn]

erm, tape isnt HDD, but ill concede the rest because its magnetic storage...lol

I was quite surprised tape was 5.25" form factor.

Apparently it has quite the future for datacenter, but video production companies also use it as I see B &H photo has 15TB LT0-7 cartridges for $80 (which is inexpensive per TB, although the 5.25" drives themselves are, of course, expensive):

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1204306-REG/hp_c7977a_lto_7_ultrium_15tb_rw.html

NOTE: One of the commenters from this article does point out that compressed video can't be compressed any further.

So 6TB for storing compressed video, 6TB for storing RAW video (uncompressed) and 15TB for storing RAW Video compressed.

Transfer rate of data not using the tape's 2:5:1 compression: 300 MB/s
Transfer rate of data benefiting from the tape's 2.5:1 compression: 750 MB/s