News - Hard drive densities to double by 2016

[HEXUS]

People need more storage for higher resolution photos, videos and gaming.

Read more.

[Noxvayl]

Thanks for abbreviating the names of the various technologies after using their full names first, it was good to read through the article knowing what abbreviation meant what.

I am in need of more storage but the prices haven't gotten back to pre-shortage levels yet, I can hold out until they do. Good to know we will be getting drives big enough to cope with 4k video though.

[darkghost]

Talking of prices - is there any news on price drops yet?

[Savas]

I thought SSD's did what HDD's can do and even better? Why will SSD's not surpass HDD's? Is it because HDD's have more Gb per square inch than SSD's?. What makes HDD's better worth reaching the 60 terabytes.

[bradyjames]

I thought SSD's did what HDD's can do and even better? Why will SSD's not surpass HDD's? Is it because HDD's have more Gb per square inch than SSD's?. What makes HDD's better worth reaching the 60 terabytes.

It's not really the storage density - it's more down to the cost per GB. Desktop HDD's are around £50 per TB compared to SSD's which are about £1 per GB. SSD's are dropping in price but it will be a long time before they reach price parity with HDD's - they are currently about twenty times the cost at large capacities. However SSD's are competative at lower capacities e.g. sub 250GB because HDD's have a base manufacturing cost due to moving parts etc. SSD's still cost more but than low capacity HDD's but they perform much faster.

Due to the performance and price differences between the two types of drives it makes sense to use SSD's as a small drive dedicated to operating system and frequently used programs with HDD's used for mass storage e.g. photo's, music, video because this sort of data is far less delay sensitive.

[OilSheikh]

brady, trhat's £1 per GB.

[bradyjames]

brady, trhat's £1 per GB.

DOH! Yes of course. Edited. Been a while since flash was £1 per Meg!

Interesting that since I posted there is a new article up on the Hexus front page about an SSD price war.

[Savas]

That's what I assumed.. But in terms of Gb per inch, well, SSD do have that edge too, right?

SSD's still have a while to go. It already out performs HDD's that's for sure. It just needs to drop in price then increase it's capacity and reliability. HDD's have been going for nearly 60 years. Once SSD has matured, it's failure rate should definitely out-shine HDD's even more. Once reliability is secured, the price should drop faster and then capacity will be about supply and demand. Then it will gain market share for all aspects.

Personally, I wouldn't use HDD's for anything other than non-mobile storage.