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

[HEXUS]

However, the data capacity, exabytes shipped, was nearly 5x greater for HDDs.

Read more.

[Jonj1611]

I am slowly moving over from hdd to sdd, I am still with hdd mainly due to cost. But as prices come down will hopefully be able to get rid of the final hdd

[Zak33]

I had zero idea that Liteon sold SSD's!!!

then a search and it's Toshiba

which is what Kyoxia is too

[LSG501]

So the 'average' capacity for both is around the £100 price point.... which I'd say is true for most people I know. Anything after that just doesn't work out as 'balanced' in terms of price versus capacity imo.

I'm shifting to primarily ssd only on the pc (nas is still hard drives due to capacity) and while I'm keeping 1 or 2 hard drives in the case they're only for 'archival' purposes.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Most systems sold with boot drives use an SSD now. But for longer term storage,HDDs tend to be used,and these are purchases done over a longer period,as they are chucked into storage arrays.

[rave_alan]

Hdd is becoming vhs of this decade

[Saracen999]

Over the last year or two, even I have bought more SSD than HDD, both in terms of units and capacity. That, however, is because I've moved a couple of machines' boot and primary storage to SSD. But .... both in units and especially in capacity, that is about to change when I switch my old RAID5 server to a NAS with several very large drives.

This threads headline (corrected by the story) is a classic example of the old "lies, damned lies and statistics" saying - you can tell the utter truth, and still create a misleading impression. The story notes that HDD sales might be down in units, but are both about 6 or 7 times higher than SSD by capacity, and have just broken all records, by capacity, simply reflects the ever-increasing average HDD capacity.

All the headline really means is SSDs are now mainstream, have a distinct advantage in some uses and are mature, but also still way, WAY more expensive than HDD per unit of capacity. I'm still trying to justify to myself the cost of three or four drives in the 10-16TB range, but I'm not putting SSDs in the NAS (or rather, I am, but as cache not storage) mainly on cost grounds, and because my surname is not Gates, Musk, Bezos, Mittal, Barclay, etc. Also, I'm not the Queen.

[neonplanet40]

RE: rave-alan - Not really. It's still the item of choice for long-term and NAS storage.

In that way, SSD's have a long way to go yet.

Agreed Saracen. I have a NAS which now has 48TB. It has zero SSD's in it. When I am remuxing my 4K Blu-rays, there is absolutely zero chance of me doing so on an SSD without paying extortionate money.

[GravJunk]

Quite possibly just consumer backup/mass-storage and enterprise cold storage that remains for HDDs. Some datacentres are already going all SSD and having PB scale deployment.

[Core2Extreme]

Perhaps what's most interesting in the market share pie chart is Western Digital having 20%, and Seagate 0.3%. Western Digital's acquisition of SanDisk seems to be paying off, whereas Seagate's future if the HDD trends continue the way they are is less secure. They own SandForce, but how commonly are SandForce controllers used nowadays? And it looks like at one point they had a stake in Kioxia; perhaps they still do. But I don't expect that comes close to being equal to 20% market share.

Seagate should still be okay as long as the overall HDD capacity trend keeps going up... prices seem to largely be per terabyte. Longer term though, I'd bet on Western Digital.

[lumireleon]

Chances of sinking at the Sea Gate is 0.6%

[Friesiansam]

I've been SSD only since 2012 and unlikely ever to buy another HDD.

[cheesemp]

My new PC (6 months old) is SSD only - previous only had 1. I just don't have big storage requirements and anything I don't want to lose is on the 'cloud' so to speak. I'm sure if I had big data requirements HDD are still useful but for the average user/gamer SSD is all you need now.

[ShakiraLaw]

HDD capacity is still keeping it alive and kicking for enterprises and NAS systems, It'll take a long while for it to be the next floppy

[mers]

SSD's have been with us for years now and have improved but for the life of me I can't get my head round how or why an ssd ( for arguments sake 1TB ) can be twice the price on average to a mechanical drive. All those components and assembly compared to a single PCB which is what an SSD is. Manufacturers must be filling their wallets with joy.

[kompukare]

SSD's have been with us for years now and have improved but for the life of me I can't get my head round how or why an ssd ( for arguments sake 1TB ) can be twice the price on average to a mechanical drive. All those components and assembly compared to a single PCB which is what an SSD is. Manufacturers must be filling their wallets with joy.

Maybe.
In terms of material usage, SSDs should be cheaper than HDDs but there are other factors.
While a HDD factory costs a fair few million, a NAND line costs billions.
To operate a fab basically requires so much money that you could become a bank / raise bonds.
High prices over the last few years might encourage new players, but SMIC is the only significant one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semico...al_Corporation
and of course it is underwritten by a state: "Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) is a partially state-owned publicly-listed Chinese semiconductor foundry company,[1][2] and the largest in mainland China.[3][4] "