Where are the 4TB drives?

[pcunite]

In my HTPC I have three drives ... one Intel 320 SSD for boot and two WD20EARS 2TB drives for storage. I only have 100GB free space!

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

I was wondering this myself the other day. I read some months ago about scienists breaking the 1TB/platter and yet there's no 4 or even 5TB 3.5" Hard Drives. Now there's even 9.5mm height 1TB mobile HDDs. We're at 500GB/platter on the 2.5" drives and yet we haven't crossed 1TB/platter on 3.5" drives.

With the 2TB HDDs like the Samsung EcoGreen F4 you're getting 25GB/dollar, so you may want to look into getting one of those.

 

[tynopik]

They're in the future

 

[corkyg]

They are in the process of development. In the meantime, just add another 2 TB. Sounds like you need a NAS.

 

[fleshconsumed]

With all the HDD manufacturers mergers/buyouts I suspect that
1. most of their resources are devoted to mergers/restructuring instead of R&D
2. with less players on the market there is less incentive to innovate

Chances are this is a permanent slowdown in the growth of mechanical HDD size. It will be a long time before 1TB+ platter drives are introduced.

 

[pcunite]

Yeah!!! HITACHI H3IK40003254SW ... only $400

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822145563

 

[exdeath]

Not coming out until you buy a dozen 2 TB drives first. You know how this industry works.

Wonder if they will find a way to roll them out in 1 GB increments iPad/iPhone style. I'm sure the dino drive manufacturers are highly jelly of the margins other industries are making with tiny incremental improvements and are tired of doubling capacity and giving it away for virtually nothing all these years.

Meh @ dino drives anyway.

Got a stack of dino drives to go hit up with the .308 and .300 WM and watch the platters split like playing cards. Starting with a 40 GB PATA


Don't ever want to see another spindle or reel of tape as long as I live.


This is a thread-derail and not acceptable.

We don't need to hear about your hate for "dino" drives, or how big a stack you have of them, or that you plan to use them for target practice. Please remind yourself of this in the future. This is not your facebook wall.

Moderator jvroig

 

[Gigantopithecus]

blah blah blah

Would you like to show us where the hard drive touched you?

Seriously, your off-topic ranting and raving about how shitty hard drives are is really, really wearisome. Get a fucking life and post something useful or STFU.


No profanity and personal attacks in the technical forums, please. Just report problematic posts and sit back. Engaging them publicly is unproductive.

Moderator jvroig

 

[bryanW1995]

With all the HDD manufacturers mergers/buyouts I suspect that
1. most of their resources are devoted to mergers/restructuring instead of R&D
2. with less players on the market there is less incentive to innovate

Chances are this is a permanent slowdown in the growth of mechanical HDD size. It will be a long time before 1TB+ platter drives are introduced.

1. Why in the world would they put engineers to work on mergers instead of R&D? I assume that was stated with tongue firmly planted in cheek.
2. somewhat true, though there is enough competition from the ever-improving $/gb of ssd's that innovation will still be prioritized.

 

[bryanW1995]

Not coming out until you buy a dozen 2 TB drives first. You know how this industry works.

Wonder if they will find a way to roll them out in 1 GB increments iPad/iPhone style. I'm sure the dino drive manufacturers are highly jelly of the margins other industries are making with tiny incremental improvements and are tired of doubling capacity and giving it away for virtually nothing all these years.

Meh @ dino drives anyway.

Got a stack of dino drives to go hit up with the .308 and .300 WM and watch the platters split like playing cards. Starting with a 40 GB PATA

Don't ever want to see another spindle or reel of tape as long as I live.

I somewhat agree with gigantopithecus, and I absolutely love ssd's. You hate hdd's, we get it. You have beaten the horse to death, now you're just trying to kill the bit and bridle, too.

 

[FAUguy]

Yeah!!! HITACHI H3IK40003254SW ... only $400

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822145563

Not sure why anyone would buy a 4TB with 5400RPM when this one is 7200RPM
http://www.hitachigst.com/internal-drives/desktop/deskstar/deskstar-7k4000

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Not sure why anyone would buy a 4TB with 5400RPM when this one is 7200RPM
http://www.hitachigst.com/internal-drives/desktop/deskstar/deskstar-7k4000

If it's cheaper and you're using it for mass storage (media rips / collection), 5400rpm is better from a power, heat and noise perspective.

 

[Dadofamunky]

...probably Thailand happened to them. Sheesh, I'm hurting bad with 2x1TB and I never thought that was possible. Maybe like Corky said, a NAS may be in my future.

 

[GotNoRice]

Thailand floods brought the whole mechanical HD industry back to ~2009 and they seem content to stay there.

I'm pretty sure they are more than content to sell $150 1TB drives basically forever.

 

[corkyg]

1. Why in the world would they put engineers to work on mergers instead of R&D? . . .

In the business world, especially technology, R&D comes directly off of the bottom line. Mergers and acquisitions are funded differently, and can often enhance the bottom l;ine.

 

[Diogenes2]

Not sure why anyone would buy a 4TB with 5400RPM when this one is 7200RPM
http://www.hitachigst.com/internal-drives/desktop/deskstar/deskstar-7k4000

Let me guess..
Because the 7200 is not available and the 5400 is?

 

[jpeyton]

Where are the 4TB drives?

Underwater

 

[Golgatha]

Thailand floods brought the whole mechanical HD industry back to ~2009 and they seem content to stay there.

I'm pretty sure they are more than content to sell $150 1TB drives basically forever.

I'm keeping my disc space usage in check until they get back to 2012 then. I didn't use to think about buying new drives due to the good pricing available. Now I think twice and I haven't purchased anything since the price hikes. $0 is not better than slimmer margins.

 

[ultimatebob]

Underwater

Yeah, that was going to be my guess as well. Besides, they'll probably push 3 TB drives before they promote 4 GB models.

 

[exdeath]

Thailand floods brought the whole mechanical HD industry back to ~2009 and they seem content to stay there.

I'm pretty sure they are more than content to sell $150 1TB drives basically forever.

This would be suicidal. Price and capacity are the ONLY reasons for HDDs to still exist. Holding out on higher capacities to milk lower capacity drives at higher prices and there will be no reason NOT to go SSD instead. Nobody in their right mind will continue to spend that kind of money on an 8 track. If HDD prices stay where they are it will simply accelerate widespread adoption and improvement of SSDs and spell a downward spiral and hasty death for HDDs sooner rather than later. Kill off the industry for short term termporary gains?

Of course you could argue the death of the HDD is already near and unstoppable, so maybe the flooding was a catalyst for one last hoorah before the imminent happens anyway.

I forsee storage being like oil prices. Somebody in Thailand sneezes and HDD prices go up? Propped up prices due to a natural disaster are a great opportunity to see how the market handles $300 hard drives. If people still buy them at that price because they have to (business, etc), then they aren't lowering the prices any time soon. Before long, they will notice they aren't selling a single one anymore when SSDs are 2 TB and $400 and they realize they just shot themselves in the face / killed the golden goose.

HDD prices have to come back down. The only way they won't is if HDD makers figure it's the end of the HDD anyway and have plans to milk it to the end.

 

[tommo123]

as someone said a few posts up, i'm not buying drives at current prices. i will need more space soon but will hold out till 2TB drives (or 3+) are reasonable again.

i don't agree that it will make people move to SSDs though. i need storage space. an SSD is useless in that regard.

 

[randomrogue]

Years ago most of the discussion was about $/GB. "I can buy a 100GB drive for $130? Oh it's on sale for $99?! That's less than $1/GB!"

You can do the same thing today if you want to compare HD to SSD.

 

[Joseph F]

NVM

 

[Fallen Kell]

They are underwater in Thailand.....

 

[corkyg]

Personally, I would prefer 4 separate 1TB drives in a modern case as opposed to a single 4TB. In the event of a drive failure, the impact would be far less catastrophic. Today I prefer several 500GB drives as opposed to 1 or 2 TB drives. Same rationale. I have never liked putting all my eggs in one basket.