SSD units sold surpassed HDDs in 2020 (333m vs 260m)

[lumireleon]

HHD costs less coz the storage (byte) blocks on the surface of the magnetic metal surface is not individually fabricated unlike SSD each byte must be created using complicated machinery and interconnected with gold wires the size of few atoms.

[kalniel]

HHD costs less coz the storage (byte) blocks on the surface of the magnetic metal surface is not individually fabricated unlike SSD each byte must be created using complicated machinery and interconnected with gold wires the size of few atoms.

I think we need to send you to memory 101... in fact, basic semi-conductor school perhaps. I'm trying to find a good explainer video but am struggling. The essence is you 'print' or 'etch' memory chips on a semi-conductor substrate. You don't connect individual bits (not bytes), instead you are designing lots of memory cells (small circuits) which can store information. In SSDs each cell stores several bits. The only wires involved are at the surface of the overall chip, which connect the pins to the chip.

[kompukare]

I think we need to send you to memory 101... in fact, basic semi-conductor school perhaps. I'm trying to find a good explainer video but am struggling. The essence is you 'print' or 'etch' memory chips on a semi-conductor substrate. You don't connect individual bits (not bytes), instead you are designing lots of memory cells (small circuits) which can store information. In SSDs each cell stores several bits. The only wires involved are at the surface of the overall chip, which connect the pins to the chip.

Well, 7nm and 5nm is totally crazy stuff so not going to pretend I know that much about it.

However, in terms of doping in the case of macro-semiconductors (think diodes for power transmission, DC motor controls on trains etc. where one diode could weigh 1 kg or more), one the best metaphor I can think of is fog, mist, dew.

This is how to coat the surface evenly (after which it gets masked and etched with acids), is to have the wafer in a near vacuum, then vaporise the metal you are going to dope so it becomes gaseous. Then let it dew onto your wafer.

Obviously, at the micro level this is far more complex, while at the nano level it is vastly more so. No idea how much of this applies to 7nm or EUV where the mask's detail is smaller than visible focusable light.

[Corky34]

I think we need to send you to memory 101... in fact, basic semi-conductor school perhaps. I'm trying to find a good explainer video but am struggling. The essence is you 'print' or 'etch' memory chips on a semi-conductor substrate. You don't connect individual bits (not bytes), instead you are designing lots of memory cells (small circuits) which can store information. In SSDs each cell stores several bits. The only wires involved are at the surface of the overall chip, which connect the pins to the chip.

Bit of a downer that, i had the image in my mind of teeny tiny dwarfs operating complicated machines and laying down wires inside my SSD every time i installed something.

[lumireleon]

I was explaining in the easiest way possible by using the term 'storage block' instead of getting into the science of logic gates but we get the point, thank you.

[Saracen999]

I was explaining in the easiest way possible by using the term 'storage block' instead of getting into the science of logic gates but we get the point, thank you.

Talking about easy examples, ever visited an HD manufacturing plant? I was given a tour, about 20 years ago, by Finis Conner (who, with Alan Shugart, co-founded Seagate) and it was fascinating. Watching the processes, from viewing ports, of the surface treatment applying the coatings to the disks in measurement scales close to numbers of atoms.

The analogy used then for heads tracking over a platter, and I suspect it contained an element of exaggeration, was "like trying to fly a jumbo jet through the Himalayas at 100ft, at Mach 3 (if it would go that fast) .... in a hurricane".


/awaits our resident 747 pilot's opinion on that notion

Note: The analogy came from a product manager, not Finis himself, IIRC.

[lumireleon]

I can't manufacture a bread toaster, its extremely complicated just by starting from iron ore refining. Nothing is easy but others are harder so the SSD tech is harder. In-fact I am amazed on how the platter manages to store terabytes of data.

TED TALK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ODzO7Lz_pw

[DanceswithUnix]

Some datacentres are already going all SSD and having PB scale deployment.

A lot of enterprise usage is for performance. It might take 10 HDDs to get a usable IOPs on a big database setup where you don't actually care about the capacity much, when a raid 1 mirror pair of cheap SSDs is faster.

[badass]

Talking about easy examples, ever visited an HD manufacturing plant? I was given a tour, about 20 years ago, by Finis Conner (who, with Alan Shugart, co-founded Seagate) and it was fascinating. Watching the processes, from viewing ports, of the surface treatment applying the coatings to the disks in measurement scales close to numbers of atoms.

The analogy used then for heads tracking over a platter, and I suspect it contained an element of exaggeration, was "like trying to fly a jumbo jet through the Himalayas at 100ft, at Mach 3 (if it would go that fast) .... in a hurricane".


/awaits our resident 747 pilot's opinion on that notion

Note: The analogy came from a product manager, not Finis himself, IIRC.

I've heard the jumbo jet analogy before and it was great. IIRC About 30 years ago. Back when 2GB (Yes gigabyte) disks were the largest, I was told a more accurate updated analogy. Essentially it involved skyscrapers, about 1 inch from the ground with bits give or take 1 inch apart. Travelling at some silly speed involving going around the earth in a fraction of a second and the ability to move across the tracks at some equally silly speed.

With HDD's carrying 10,000 times that much data now I think analogies break down!

EDIT: I missed what I wanted to get across - that analogy rather than an exaggeration was probably the reverse of one!

[Percy1983]

In my case I can't afford/justify all SSD, I am running 2 4TB raid 0 arrays (2x2TB) which are cached with a 256GB nvme which is in turn cached by 16gb ram (as is the boot nvme). Works great for photography/videography work and seems to handle games well.

Of course I do have an 8TB external backup to protect against raid failure and run a UPS to protect the risky ram caching.

[Saracen999]

I can't manufacture a bread toaster, its extremely complicated just by starting from iron ore refining. Nothing is easy but others are harder so the SSD tech is harder. In-fact I am amazed on how the platter manages to store terabytes of data.

TED TALK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ODzO7Lz_pw

Manufacturing almost anything in the tech world is a lot harder than we think. Another tour I did was Epson's ink cartridge manufacturing plant in Japan (the small-scale one, not the big ones in Malaysia, IIRC). But even there, just for an ink cartridge, you find out how phenomenally fast and accurate the timing has to be, and how they use (or used, as this was years ago) eximer lasers to cut ink channels in a material rather like photographic celluloid, because standard lasers weren't accurate enough. All in a clean room environment, of course. And they don't just manufacture the cartridges. They first manufacture the robotics that manufacture the cartridges.

[Jonj1611]

£100 for 60GB 12 years ago sounds cheap

[Sam 359]

I've come across some great deals recently on SSD's it seems to be the only area of PC's right now that is a buyer's market. Frequent sales popping up everywhere.