How soon until magnetic HDs become obsolete?

[JMapleton]

I recently upgraded to an SSD because my 5 year old system was getting really slow. I knew it was the hard drive slowing me down.

Since I've installed this hard drive, it's like I have a brand new computer. My 5 year old 530 Clarkdale starts up like nothing.

How soon before SSD become basically the only option? Prices still have a little bit to come down, but prices are very very reasonable now. I remember when magnetic hard drives were $1 per GB and people gladly paid. SSD is and will do a lot for computing. Your HD is typically the slowest part of your CPU and SSDs make it one of the fastest.

 

[Soundmanred]

Storage.

 

[lamedude]

When we run out of helium and Hitachi can't build 7 platter drives anymore

But then they'll providing revive the 5.25" Bigfoot HDDs.

 

[sandorski]

IMO, maybe 10 more years, depends though, if Platter drives continue to push ever higher capacity they may stick around for a long time.

 

[norseamd]

ssds have known limitations on their future size prospects. hdds are already getting to 5 gb+ and may get to 10 gb or more in the next few years. you will have to wait until a better memory technology comes along than flash.

 

[silicon]

I recently upgraded to an SSD because my 5 year old system was getting really slow. I knew it was the hard drive slowing me down.

Since I've installed this hard drive, it's like I have a brand new computer. My 5 year old 530 Clarkdale starts up like nothing.

How soon before SSD become basically the only option? Prices still have a little bit to come down, but prices are very very reasonable now. I remember when magnetic hard drives were $1 per GB and people gladly paid. SSD is and will do a lot for computing. Your HD is typically the slowest part of your CPU and SSDs make it one of the fastest.

in my opinion magnetic hard drives have been obsolete for some time now and as SSD's become more common place then slowly the platters will be driven from the market place.

 

[mikeymikec]

Tape drives are still being sold, as far as I'm aware. If it has a purpose, therefore it has a niche of the market. If I had to guess, 4TB of SSD would cost probably ten times more than a 4TB HDD.

IMO it'll be about 3 years before SSDs really hit the mainstream (ie. there's a good chance that if you picked any computer - low, mid, high range - it would have an SSD in), though having said that I think I started thinking that about two years ago.

 

[Blain]

Viva la spinning platters!

 

[mnewsham]

Tape drives are still being sold, as far as I'm aware. If it has a purpose, therefore it has a niche of the market. If I had to guess, 4TB of SSD would cost probably ten times more than a 4TB HDD.

IMO it'll be about 3 years before SSDs really hit the mainstream (ie. there's a good chance that if you picked any computer - low, mid, high range - it would have an SSD in), though having said that I think I started thinking that about two years ago.

SSDs are becoming already somewhat common in $1000+ laptops either as a single drive or MSATA + HDD. I would wager that within the next 2-4 years we will see either an on the motherboard SSD solution (64GB ssd directly on the motherboard for loading the OS on to) or larger capacity SSDs coming down enough to see 240GB SSD + 1-2TB HDD combos being standard.

 

[mikeymikec]

@ mnewsham

Yep, I noticed that after I posted. There's an odd mix of SSD-equipped laptops from what I can see in the UK.

About 6 months ago I set up a new laptop with a 24GB SSD + 1TB HDD rapid start setup (can't remember the acronym), TBH I couldn't tell the difference between a typical HDD system and that hybrid.

 

[Railgun]

ssds have known limitations on their future size prospects. hdds are already getting to 5 gb+ and may get to 10 gb or more in the next few years. you will have to wait until a better memory technology comes along than flash.

I'm sure you meant TB.

And SSDs don't have any limitations really. If you want to lock into their current form factor, they're a bit more limited, but with SSDs that are already at 1TB...

 

[norseamd]

so is universal memory the combining of ram and the ssd or hard drive?

 

[corkyg]

"How soon until magnetic HDs become obsolete?"

While they may currently be obsolescent, they are not yet obsolete. My response to the question is, not in my lifetime.

 

[Cerb]

How soon before SSD become basically the only option?

When they're cheaper. Same reason PCs still even come with HDDs: cost.

Prices still have a little bit to come down, but prices are very very reasonable now.

You can get 3TB in a HDD for the cost of 240GB in a SSD. That's over an order of magnitude, not, "a little bit." Consumer HDDs as expensive as 480GB+ SSDs basically don't even exist, anymore.

Until an SSD of some reasonable size is cheaper than the cheapest HDD, or OEMs offer SSDs in well-priced computers anyway, HDDs will not be obsolete for client PC use.

 

[Charlie98]

...not in my lifetime.

This.

I would wager that within the next 2-4 years we will see either an on the motherboard SSD solution (64GB ssd directly on the motherboard for loading the OS on to...)

If it's a Windows PC, they better bump that up to 90GB...

 

[Sheep221]

backing up of the most important data is still done with rotating magnetic tapes, so I'm sure magnetic HDs are not going anywhere any soon

 

[DigDog]

maybe what needs to happen is for cheaper flash memory SSDs. instead of going for crazy performance, going for size.
i can see right now a Kingston Data Traveller 64Gb for £4 (about five bucks) on eBay.

 

[88keys]

The problem with those large but cheap flash drives is that they are horrendously slow, and the better ones aren't priced a whole lot better than a small SSD.

Platter HDDs will be around indefinitely as our storage needs increase. In 2014 typical OS install is around 10GB by itself vs 2 or 3 GB 10 years ago. Then you consider the multitude of pics, videos, music etc. that we have saved somewhere; you realize that SSDs alone just arent going to cut it. HD videos, high quality images, and flac files can take up lots of space, and as the quality increases so will need for more space.

If you needed to put together a 2TB NAS right now. Tell me what it would cost to build one with SSD storage vs HDD storage, then consider your question answered.

If anything HDDs will most likely be delegated toward storage and back up in the form of secondary drives, external drives or network drives. But don't expect HDDs to go anywhere until someone comes up with something that better at a comparable price.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

so is universal memory the combining of ram and the ssd or hard drive?

yeah, something like MRAM could be used for everything, and would be magnetic, and thus a magnetic "HD" could be in our future, not our past

 

[MongGrel]

For storage I'm sure they'll still be around awhile.

Still have an old Areca 1210 in here running 4x1TB WD RE-3s in the main rig for storage even after putting a couple Samsung Evo's on a SATA 3 adapter card in RAID 0 one a X58 P6T7 for the OS, getting ready to slap a X5650 in here tomorrow.

 

[VirtualLarry]

What about the rare earth elements that go into HDDs, both in the heads and the platters. That stuff is "rare", so eventually it will increase the price of HDDs, or perhaps they won't even be able to be made anymore.

 

[Morbus]

You lot seem to be forgetting that SSDs won't hold data for long periods of time if they're not turned on regularly... So they are, right now, obsolete (as in, they don't work), as a storage device.

I'm not wrong, am I? SSDs do need to be powered on every few months lest they wipe themselves out, right?

 

[cbn]

Until an SSD of some reasonable size is cheaper than the cheapest HDD, or OEMs offer SSDs in well-priced computers anyway, HDDs will not be obsolete for client PC use.

I agree about the price floor on the flash storage device needing to be lower than the price floor of HDD...... I just wonder if it will be some type of flash other than SSD.

 

[Cerb]

I agree about the price floor on the flash storage device needing to be lower than the price floor of HDD...... I just wonder if it will be some type of flash other than SSD.

If it's a flash block storage device, it can't be anything other than an SSD.

 

[Cerb]

You lot seem to be forgetting that SSDs won't hold data for long periods of time if they're not turned on regularly... So they are, right now, obsolete (as in, they don't work), as a storage device.

I'm not wrong, am I? SSDs do need to be powered on every few months lest they wipe themselves out, right?

Depends on temperature and wear. IMFT offers MLC rated by them for up to 5 years at ~70F (or, at least, they did though 25nm, and projected the same for the future). JEDEC spec is 1 year. Those times are based on being at the p/e rating.

So, yes, but the temperature sensitivity is what mainly sets them apart from HDDs. Intel is the only one I know of that's shown research data from testing at different temps, and at temps that a drive might find itself in your car on a hot day, they were down to just weeks.

I was also quite ignorant of that not long ago, as there seemed to be somewhat of an urban mythology surrounding it for USB thumb drives.