Question How small will computer hard drives get ?

[wpshooter]

I know that no one has a crystal ball but how small (dimensions) are computer hard drives likely to get in say the next 20 years ?

Right now an SSD is just slightly larger than 3 or 4 debit/credit cards laid on top of each other.

And m.2 slot cards are even smaller although slightly longer.

Will the time come when motherboards will have numerous plugin slots similar to USB ports so that a user can just plug in and remove
hard drives whenever they need to ? Similar to ram slots but smaller.

Thanks.

 

[Ichinisan]

...

And m.2 slot cards are even smaller although slightly longer.

The M.2 standard allows for a few different sizes.

short m.2 drive - Google Suche

 

[CZroe]

I know that no one has a crystal ball but how small (dimensions) are computer hard drives likely to get in say the next 20 years ?

Right now an SSD is just slightly larger than 3 or 4 debit/credit cards laid on top of each other.

And m.2 slot cards are even smaller although slightly longer.

Will the time come when motherboards will have numerous plugin slots similar to USB ports so that a user can just plug in and remove
hard drives whenever they need to ? Similar to ram slots but smaller.

Thanks.

My Acer Aspire One netbook back in 2008 had a laughably-slow 8GB SSD from Intel that was the size of an SODIMM and interfaced with an IDE ZIF cable. I ended up replacing it with a Hitachi 1.8" microdrive but it requires modification.

Plenty of devices use a microSD as an SSD, which is significantly smaller.

 

[Fir]

I picked up a 2TB "Inland" brand nvme from Microcenter. It was $219, based on Phison E12 controller. Amazingly, unlike the 1TB variant which I've installed into dozens of client laptops, this puppy is single sided! I understand 4 and even 8TB versions based on PCI-E 4.0 and the newer Phison E16 are coming out this summer. 8TB form factor the size of a stick of gum. Pretty amazing, eh?

 

[Charlie98]

I think there will be a tradeoff... as the drives are getting smaller, the capacity is growing. My first SSD was a 60GB OCZ, but now you can get 512GB microSD chips, but then read and write speeds take over.

 

[UsandThem]

The M.2 standard allows for a few different sizes.

short m.2 drive - Google Suche

Yup.

The (horribly slow) 2230 M.2 128GB SSD I pulled from my Dell laptop is pretty small.

 

[SAAA]

I'd rather hope silicon gets cheap enough we can go back to large drives. Honestly: imagine how much data you could store in a 3.5" drive filled with flash/optane memory.

But I'm even more amazed traditional hard disks makers haven't thought yet of a way to use the magnetic substrate they already have in a flash like solid state memory.
So instead of moving parts an hard disk plate covered with nanosized read-write heads: imagine the endurance rating!

 

[aigomorla]

I'd rather hope silicon gets cheap enough we can go back to large drives. Honestly: imagine how much data you could store in a 3.5" drive filled with flash/optane memory.

Space is not the issue.
Its the Controller to allocate that space which is.

This is why its very difficult to break that 2TB limit on most SSD's, and those that do, cost an arm and a leg.
I believe NVMe's are getting closer to working around that at a economical cost, but were still a bit away.

 

[KentState]

I'm not sure what market you are asking about. From a general consumer stand point, photos are taken on phones and stored in the cloud. People store very little locally.

From an enthusiast stand point, smaller/large quantity flash drives may be ideal but m2 drives take up very little real estate as it is. We already have USB-C drives that can easily be swapped. Cooling has to be addressed as the external drives get rather toasty.

On the enterprise side, they are already looking a new form factors to maximize density and provide adequate cooling. 2.5" was a relic of the mechanical drive era and carried over.