Are mechanical disks going to fade away?

[tucansam]

I am trying to plan some future upgrades, and have been reading some articles on hard disk roadmaps from various companies.  HAMR technology seems to be something discussed often, but most of the comments on these articles are filled with folks hypothesizing that mechanical disks will be forever limited in capacity, while SSDs will continue to come down in price and also increase in size.  I've seen 10TB spinners, but can't seem to find anything indicating larger mechanical disks are on the horizon (I am still searching so feel free to post links I've missed).

 

 

[StevenD]

Hopefully!

[1812]

60tb in a 3.5 package: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/08/seagate-unveils-60tb-ssd-the-worlds-largest-hard-drive/

 

bye bye spinning disk.

[Chris Pollard]

1 hour ago, 1812 said:

60tb in a 3.5 package: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/08/seagate-unveils-60tb-ssd-the-worlds-largest-hard-drive/

 

bye bye spinning disk.

 

$40000 sounds like a bargain.

[StevenD]

5 minutes ago, Chris Pollard said:

 

$40000 sounds like a bargain.

 

Four in a RAID10. It would pay me back in electricity savings eventually.

[c3]

There was a trick question last year, what's the largest disk you can buy? The answer is the Samsung 15.3TB SSD. This came as a surprise to many as they tried to defend their answer of 10TB, but the reality is the 15.3TB goes exactly where the 10TB answer was. This is the TB/unit question, which is really, not meaningful.

 

So, the new questions are what is the best $/TB or $/iop? You need to understand what you are looking for, and ask the right question.

 

As you mentioned HDDs have several technologies on the roadmap which will allow for increased capacity/density. These will continue the $/TB curve where HDDs have the lead.

 

On the other side, SSDs are adding things like compression and duplication. It is quite the competition.

 

The first to vanish is the SAS or high performance HDDs, 10k, 15k. HDDs are becoming purely a capacity play, $/GB.

 

Next, desktops and laptops will contain SSDs. Frankly, I am surprised how many are still listed with HDDs.

 

To answer your question, no HDDs are not going away. But you probably wont be seeing them. They are moving into the data center, which is where most >4TB HDDs are already. And in this space, the question becomes how many TB/U and $/TB. 4U for a PB? done

 

Seagate, Hitachi, and WD are in the packaged HDD business. Once HDDs are out of the laptops and desktops, these packages will become of the focus of the $/GB and TB/U optimization. One of the first things to go will probably be the 3.5 inch z height. More platters per (spindle motor)+(head servo) is a great way to drive down $/TB.

Edited March 25, 2017 by c3
typo

[CyberSkulls]

As far as drives larger than 10TB, HGST announced last year 12TB and 14TB drives would be coming this year.

I've said this many many times over the past five years. Spinners aren't going anywhere and will continue to get larger.

SSD's will eventually outpace spinners in raw size but they won't replace spinners till their prices come down.

When you can buy a 10TB SSD for $400, I'll be interested. Till then, spinners will stay in my chassis. That's not going to happen for many years.


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[TSM]

We're probably decades away from consumer devices that could use this technology, but still very interesting.  

 

http://www.zdnet.com/article/single-atom-magnet-to-pave-the-way-for-smaller-and-denser-storage-devices-ibm/

[garycase]

Certainly agree => spinners are going to be the choice for serious storage; but SSDs will rule desktops and storage where cost doesn't matter.   But I doubt folks on this forum will be building 100TB arrays using SSDs anytime soon

 

[garycase]

... I suppose the answer to the question ["Are mechanical disks going to fade away?"], however, is, from a consumer's perspective, Yes.   I think virtually all laptops and a very high percentage of desktops will ship with SSDs within a couple of years.    But for applications with large TB capacities -- data centers, major corporations, etc. -- spinners will still be around for a good while -- at least until (as noted above) the cost/TB becomes much more competitive.

 

Many of us would easily pay double the cost/TB for SSDs, but most won't pay ten times the cost.  And even double the cost would require a bit of thought if the sole purpose was archival storage that's rarely accessed; or a media server that only needed enough speed to stream a movie or two.

 

[kizer]

Wow all this Talk about 10TB drives. I better get that old 500GB Spinner out of my Array some day. Lol 

[1812]

3 hours ago, kizer said:

Wow all this Talk about 10TB drives. I better get that old 500GB Spinner out of my Array some day. Lol 

 

I have 2 that i'm waiting to fail so i have an excuse to upgrade.