Question Is it now time for SSDs to replace HDDs?

[Insert_Nickname]

I think that's wrong. Even on youtube, I will often download videos for a local copy, and P2P filesharing isn't going away any year soon, just more content to acquire.

I see streaming more as a replacement to CATV, not at all a reduction in local storage. If anything it may be providing more content for local storage, much easier to rip/otherwise-acquire than video capturing CATV used to be.

I think it's important to distinguish between local storage inside the case, and local storage outside the case. I have quite the demand for storage space itself. But I don't really have much demand for storage space on each local machine, since everything important is stored on a NAS anyway. That kind of data really isn't that performance critical, so fits on a HDD fine. Standard gigabit ethernet is the main bottleneck here, an SSD won't help much at all. Except with random I/O.

 

[IntelUser2000]

The time came a few years ago. Now decent SSDs are cheap, so it’s silly not to use one for your main drive.

On Desktops, HDDs will be dominant storage for a while. HDDs can still allow budget systems to reach the lowest price point especially combined with OEM deals. Also SSDs can be used as a marketing point to upsell for those that care. Not to mention there is probably all sorts of contracts and deals made between companies that are under the surface and doesn't seem so obvious as well.

I've also seen people that just doesn't care much about loading times. If you think about it, it makes sense. Loading times are secondary to frames per second and compute performance.

As enthusiasts its easy to just look at tech, but to understand fully we have to also count the human factor.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

HDDs can still allow budget systems to reach the lowest price point especially combined with OEM deals.

Don't know about OEM, but here SSDs are cheaper then HDDs at retail. 128GB ones are really scraping bottom right now.

 

[IntelUser2000]

I don't think places like Newegg and Amazon where you can buy in individual units can be compared with large purchases. Weird things can happen like a prebuilt and configured Desktop with 2 year warranty being cheaper than buying individual components and building them.

In Notebooks, SSDs have been outselling HDDs for few years now. But its different in Desktops. Also 2/3rd of the total PCs consist of notebooks.

HDD manufacturers can also sell at cost, or even at loss for real low end models. I think they tend to avoid doing this selling individual units. But in volume deals consisting of millions of units, sure.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I don't think places like Newegg and Amazon where you can buy in individual units can be compared with large purchases. Weird things can happen like a prebuilt and configured Desktop with 2 year warranty being cheaper than buying individual components and building them.

In Notebooks, SSDs have been outselling HDDs for few years now. But its different in Desktops. Also 2/3rd of the total PCs consist of notebooks.

HDD manufacturers can also sell at cost, or even at loss for real low end models. I think they tend to avoid doing this selling individual units. But in volume deals consisting of millions of units, sure.

It is comparing apples to oranges, but I'd think the same scenario would hold for bulk purchases too. About the only advantage HDDs have are slightly increased capacity for a given price. But that is more then offset by the performance disadvantage.

Yes, Notebooks are outselling desktops by a fair margin, but then traditional tower desktops are dying too. Especially in corporate. Most newer equipment tend to be small form factor, or even NUCs. Which don't have room for a traditional 3.5" HDD.

My own opinion is that in 2019, nobody should be made to suffer a HDD based system.

 

[whm1974]

It is comparing apples to oranges, but I'd think the same scenario would hold for bulk purchases too. About the only advantage HDDs have are slightly increased capacity for a given price. But that is more then offset by the performance disadvantage.

Yes, Notebooks are outselling desktops by a fair margin, but then traditional tower desktops are dying too. Especially in corporate. Most newer equipment tend to be small form factor, or even NUCs. Which don't have room for a traditional 3.5" HDD.

My own opinion is that in 2019, nobody should be made to suffer a HDD based system.

Well the full size ATX towers will be used for gaming systems, high performance, and DIY builders who prefer that form factor. Although MicroATX and mITX is displacing ATX even in those areas.

At some point as large SSDs get lower in price, they will most supplant HDDs aside from a few niches.

 

[Igo69]

I think it is time to move to NVME SSDs.

 

[Amol S.]

It is comparing apples to oranges, but I'd think the same scenario would hold for bulk purchases too. About the only advantage HDDs have are slightly increased capacity for a given price. But that is more then offset by the performance disadvantage.

Yes, Notebooks are outselling desktops by a fair margin, but then traditional tower desktops are dying too. Especially in corporate. Most newer equipment tend to be small form factor, or even NUCs. Which don't have room for a traditional 3.5" HDD.

My own opinion is that in 2019, nobody should be made to suffer a HDD based system.

You can not compare a 3.5" HDD to a 2.5" HDD when disk storage size is involved, the max a single 3.5" HDD can currently hold is always greater than the max that a 2.5" HDD can hold.

On another note, a 1 TB 2.5" SSD is never going to be cheaper than a 1 TB 3.5" SSD, a lot less miniaturization and microness of the components are involved in 3.5"SSD.


SSD's do have down sides compared to HDD's. SSD's can not be used for applications that involve large number of deletions or overwrites. It's a proven fact that Uncorrectable Bit Error Rate is much larger than that of a HDD. Another issue that SSD's have is that they are more likely to fail, in a more unforgiving manner than HDD's, in terms of water damage occurring. The same statement can be given for an electrical surge. This is due to the fact that, SSD's have more electrical circuitry components when compared to a HDD's. It is also much more easier to retrieve data from a malfunctioning HDD, than it is for a SSD. The reason being is that data on a HDD is written on a magnetic medium which could be removed, from its casing, and read in other ways or forms; albeit maybe in a theoretical sense, of placing these magnetic disks in another casing. With SSD's, one needs knowledge of how the specific circuitry is created, to understand which data bit is where. As in the previous scenario of water damage or an electrical surge, the memory containing components (chips) could be damaged such that data is not retrievable from it. This is not the case with HDD's, more especially in the scenario of an electrical surge, where only a small portion of the magnetic plate might get over magnetized, or the arm could get damaged. Now these are the issues with SSD's when compared to HDD's overall, however in a business environment there will are actually a lot more issues.

In a business environment, when a data storage device is upgraded or if it is needed disposal off, the data in the drive needs to cleared and unreadable. If that is not done, then it could cause harm or a breach in security and policy, if the improperly disposed drive contains trade secrets or any classified data. In reality, it is actually costs more to destroy a SSD than it does to destroy a HDD. A HDD can be disposed of by opening it up and placing it in a microwave for a few minutes. This is not the case with a SSD. It would take a lot of more lucrative work to destroy such media and/or make its data gone or inaccessible. Basically... a new job requirement in security field would be... must be stong enough to destroy things with hammers (Advil or Tylenol not paid for). Now that would probably be unfair for those with physical disabilities.

 

[killster1]

It's been the case for a few years now that every consumer machine should have an SSD as primary storage, even if it's a low-end budget machine. There's no other component upgrade that provides such a strong return on investment, and for most consumers their capacity needs haven't been growing anywhere near as fast as the affordability of SSDs. We're approaching the point where even gamers with large Steam libraries can go all solid-state, but I get the feeling that AAA games are by far the biggest drivers of increased demand for local storage capacity, since streaming video has almost completely displaced local storage.

For most consumers, the only place for mechanical drives is a NAS or external drive used for backups. Hard drives will remain more cost-effective in this niche for quite a while.

Really u don't have a 8tb or 8 in your pc? qhen will ssd ever come close t the price.. again it depends what the person is doing and if they require more than 2tb (which is still over 4x the price of a spinner) hds wont go anywhere or do u want to pay 4x the price for ur cloud storage etc?

 

[killster1]

I might be DIY but all my laptops have now been converted to SSD's. $57 for the 500 gig WD blue is my biggest, most are $30 256 gig drives.

It's not strange to buy 1500$ cpus and use 30$ ssd? Heheh I have 2tb spinner and a 1tb nvme in most my laptops and I think the 2tb is still not enough and no I'm not going to use external that's silly for something that's suppose to be portable .

 

[killster1]

I don't think you're wrong in that assessment.

There are two additional drivers for capacity. Home recorded 4K video, and photos. Particularly photos in RAW format. Large libraries of either does tend to use some storage space. But again, mostly for archiving. Which fits better on a NAS or external drive.

Exactly .. I wonder what u guys watch I guess 720p is good enough if u only have a 256gb hahahha but for me that's just two movies and the drive is full. (Ya sometimes I cut it down to 60gb then I could fit 4 whole movies heh.. ) not to even mention home video / photos (another 8tb a year at least)

 

[hojnikb]

Personally, i'd never use SSDs fo bulk storage, especially for offline drives. Yes, SSDs are awesome for system drives, but if you need a lot of storage, HDDs are still the way to go.

You can unplug one for 10 years and data will still be there.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

You can not compare a 3.5" HDD to a 2.5" HDD when disk storage size is involved, the max a single 3.5" HDD can currently hold is always greater than the max that a 2.5" HDD can hold.

On another note, a 1 TB 2.5" SSD is never going to be cheaper than a 1 TB 3.5" SSD, a lot less miniaturization and microness of the components are involved in 3.5"SSD.

If there isn't room to physically fit a 3.5" drive, that is a moot point.

3.5" drives are always going to win on capacity. No question. But again, they don't have to be physically present in the case. Most people/businesses I know have transitioned to NAS for bulk storage. It's a lot easier to manage, and makes it easier to access content across various devices.

SSD's do have down sides compared to HDD's. SSD's can not be used for applications that involve large number of deletions or overwrites. It's a proven fact that Uncorrectable Bit Error Rate is much larger than that of a HDD. Another issue that SSD's have is that they are more likely to fail, in a more unforgiving manner than HDD's, in terms of water damage occurring. The same statement can be given for an electrical surge. This is due to the fact that, SSD's have more electrical circuitry components when compared to a HDD's. It is also much more easier to retrieve data from a malfunctioning HDD, than it is for a SSD. The reason being is that data on a HDD is written on a magnetic medium which could be removed, from its casing, and read in other ways or forms; albeit maybe in a theoretical sense, of placing these magnetic disks in another casing. With SSD's, one needs knowledge of how the specific circuitry is created, to understand which data bit is where. As in the previous scenario of water damage or an electrical surge, the memory containing components (chips) could be damaged such that data is not retrievable from it. This is not the case with HDD's, more especially in the scenario of an electrical surge, where only a small portion of the magnetic plate might get over magnetized, or the arm could get damaged. Now these are the issues with SSD's when compared to HDD's overall, however in a business environment there will are actually a lot more issues.

...?

This is what backups are for. If you need to do data recovery in a business environment, you're doing it wrong...

In a business environment, when a data storage device is upgraded or if it is needed disposal off, the data in the drive needs to cleared and unreadable. If that is not done, then it could cause harm or a breach in security and policy, if the improperly disposed drive contains trade secrets or any classified data. In reality, it is actually costs more to destroy a SSD than it does to destroy a HDD. A HDD can be disposed of by opening it up and placing it in a microwave for a few minutes. This is not the case with a SSD. It would take a lot of more lucrative work to destroy such media and/or make its data gone or inaccessible. Basically... a new job requirement in security field would be... must be stong enough to destroy things with hammers (Advil or Tylenol not paid for). Now that would probably be unfair for those with physical disabilities.

There are plenty of fun ways to destroy drives. It can involve (sledge)hammers, shooting, immersion in various liquids etc. It's a fun exercise, that works with all kinds of drives and media.

It's one of the perks of working IT. It's also a great team building exercise over a barbecue.

 

[Markfw]

It's not strange to buy 1500$ cpus and use 30$ ssd? Heheh I have 2tb spinner and a 1tb nvme in most my laptops and I think the 2tb is still not enough and no I'm not going to use external that's silly for something that's suppose to be portable .

This comment was about laptops. The most exspensive laptop I have is $500, the whole laptop. They don't even make $1500 cpus' for laptops.

 

[whm1974]

This comment was about laptops. The most exspensive laptop I have is $500, the whole laptop. They don't even make $1500 cpus' for laptops.

Aside from very high end Portable Workstations why would anyone bother putting a $1500 CPU in a laptop anyway?

 

[Amol S.]

Aside from very high end Portable Workstations why would anyone bother putting a $1500 CPU in a laptop anyway?

The only thing I can think of are, "Addicted Gamers".

 

[Amol S.]

If there isn't room to physically fit a 3.5" drive, that is a moot point.

3.5" drives are always going to win on capacity. No question. But again, they don't have to be physically present in the case. Most people/businesses I know have transitioned to NAS for bulk storage. It's a lot easier to manage, and makes it easier to access content across various devices.



...?

This is what backups are for. If you need to do data recovery in a business environment, you're doing it wrong...

Cheaper Desktops always use 3.5", that's how manufacturers try to make them cheaper. You may need to pay more monthly charges, for a static public IP address to access the NAS outside of the local network. NAS is impractical in many cases also, for example students in college can get diffferent types of hands on tasks out of the blue. NAS does not always work.

That does not always work well for large enterprise buissnesses, that may have not started doing backups from the beggining.

 

[Igo69]

https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/g...her-12-to-77-million-devices-for-q1-2019.html

In the years to come I predict there will be a tipping point where productions ramps down and HDDs will become more expensive than SSDs.

How? Low supply and high demand?

 

[Amol S.]

https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/g...her-12-to-77-million-devices-for-q1-2019.html


How? Low supply and high demand?

I think the person you quoted probably meant... low supply and higher storage capacity.

 

[whm1974]

The only thing I can think of are, "Addicted Gamers".

And along with a $1500 Notebook dGPU and and outright silly amount of memory and very large SSDs. ~$10,000+ laptop?

 

[cbn]

Well the full size ATX towers will be used for gaming systems, high performance, and DIY builders who prefer that form factor.

Hard drives are getting better and for a high capacity (with high storage performance) ATX (or even certain uATX) system with Z370 I would want those (in RAID-5) with Optane (either with Primocache or hopefully the Optane application will eventually be able to cache RAID.)

 

[Shmee]

It is now time + 5 or more Earth years.

 

[cbn]

2TB 660p is $200 FS:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...97 8000&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&order=PRICE&page=1

I wonder how much longer till we get a 4TB? $400?

 

[Rifter]

For a boot drive for sure, but we are still decades away from them replacing all HDD's. I just built a 72TB storage array, cost me right around 2k for the spinners, if i built that with SSD's it would have been over 10k.

 

[kurosaki]

For a boot drive for sure, but we are still decades away from them replacing all HDD's. I just built a 72TB storage array, cost me right around 2k for the spinners, if i built that with SSD's it would have been over 10k.

And SSDs are worthless holding data for several different reasons. Would not store my family photos on some SSDs even if I could score 4TB as cheap as spinners. I mirror 8 TB in refs and sync with a Nas, periodically I attach an external for real backup.. ssd only games and os for me. Maybe optane is better for lossless storage?