Author Topic: The end of the hard disk (Read 36920 times)

ewemoa · « **Reply #25 on:** June 28, 2015, 11:36 PM »

It's good to be prepared

MilesAhead · « **Reply #26 on:** June 29, 2015, 05:34 AM »

They will probably keep making spinners in plants that already exist like audio cassettes. It will become a niche market.

ewemoa · « **Reply #27 on:** June 29, 2015, 05:42 PM »

Like optical media perhaps

MilesAhead · « **Reply #28 on:** June 30, 2015, 05:29 AM »

Like optical media perhaps
-ewemoa (June 29, 2015, 05:42 PM)

HD don't skip across the pond as well. Those 3 1/2"ers make a big splash.

kyrathaba · « **Reply #29 on:** July 06, 2015, 09:03 PM »

I can't wait to see some really high capacity usb 3.0 sticks cheap.

+1.

xtabber · « **Reply #30 on:** July 07, 2015, 09:38 AM »

Yesterday, Samsung introduced 2 new 2T SSDs with MSRPs of $800 and $1,000.

That's about 10 times the current price of a 2TB laptop drive, but these SSD's are in a 7mm form factor, meaning that they will fit in slim laptops, unlike 2TB HDDs, which are all 9.5mm or greater. Furthermore, they have 5 and 10 year warranties and are rated at 150TB and 300TB writes respectively, which works out to about 80GB of writes every 24 hours for the rated life of the drive. No laptop drive has more than a 3 year warranty and most have only 1 year.

250GB SSDs are currently selling for under $80 and 500GB SSDs under $175 at retail, and are both faster and more resilient than rotating memory, so it's clear that you won't see HDDs in portable computers much longer.

superboyac · « **Reply #31 on:** July 21, 2015, 04:26 PM »

revisiting this topic...
ok, so 4TB regular hard drives can be had for about $200-300.
1TB SSD is over $400

If the analysis involves storage capacity, the SSDs don't stand a chance unless you are willing to fork over 4x more for them. And with 8TB and 10TB coming out soon...I just don't see the "end" anywhere near.

Currently, and for the near future, they seem to serve two different purposes. The only market that the SSD took over is the non-techie consumer market (a large one, however, lol). People who don't use computers much now can get desktops with SSD instead of the big mechanical drive. And for external use, most are also going with the SSD for good reason, even over the similar form factor 2.5 mechanical drive. But for actual hardcore use, massive storage, enterprise etc. the mechanical drive is still king by a longshot.

An 8TB single drive is a beautiful thing.

The whole storage industry is nutz right now. The capacities and form factors are unbelievable. I just got a 128GB microSD card for under $100. It's the size of my pinky nail. With this kind of storage power, it may be the end of the world, but not the end of the mechanical drive!

4wd · « **Reply #32 on:** July 21, 2015, 10:05 PM »

An 8TB single drive is a beautiful thing.
-superboyac (July 21, 2015, 04:26 PM)

Until it dies.

Deozaan · « **Reply #33 on:** July 22, 2015, 12:20 AM »

An 8TB single drive is a beautiful thing.
-superboyac (July 21, 2015, 04:26 PM)

Until it dies.
-4wd (July 21, 2015, 10:05 PM)

Yeah, but they're (relatively) cheap enough to buy two (or more) for redundancy.

Shades · « **Reply #34 on:** July 22, 2015, 07:00 AM »

Hard disks can become too big to fail...

superboyac · « **Reply #35 on:** July 22, 2015, 09:01 AM »

An 8TB single drive is a beautiful thing.
-superboyac (July 21, 2015, 04:26 PM)

Until it dies.
-4wd (July 21, 2015, 10:05 PM)

Yeah, but they're (relatively) cheap enough to buy two (or more) for redundancy.
-Deozaan (July 22, 2015, 12:20 AM)

exactly. I learned my lesson with the IBM deathstars. I buy drives 2 at a time now. Always even numbers.

wraith808 · « **Reply #36 on:** July 22, 2015, 09:05 AM »

Hard disks can become too big to fail...
-Shades (July 22, 2015, 07:00 AM)

Do they get a bailout at that point?

MilesAhead · « **Reply #37 on:** July 22, 2015, 09:34 AM »

Hard disks can become too big to fail...
-Shades (July 22, 2015, 07:00 AM)

Do they get a bailout at that point?
-wraith808 (July 22, 2015, 09:05 AM)

It's a good thing they have that 8TB drive. They will need it to store the debt that is being kept off the books. Got to store that huge number someplace.

JavaJones · « **Reply #38 on:** July 23, 2015, 04:54 PM »

I think if you look at storage trends, the increase in size of mechanical HDs has been slower (relatively speaking) than the increase in size of flash-based solid-state storage. That's where much of the research is being focused now too (for good reason), and so naturally innovation is faster there. Mechanical drives have also been knocking on the doors of *physical* limitations for a while now, and although there always seems to be an innovation around the corner that extends things a good bit, it almost certainly gets harder and harder. Meanwhile, if capacity really needs to be increased for SSD, one could always just have a bigger physical package. Current drives are all 2.5" form factor, but you could easily quadruple capacity by making a full-sized form factor (not sure if cooling would become an issue, but probably a fixable one if so). That says nothing of pricing, of course, but that has been falling consistently for years, so it's really only a matter of time before the graph lines of hard drive's slowing capacity increase crosses the line of SSD's decreasing costs and increasing capacity... I think it will be another year or two, but not a ton more time...

- Oshyna

MilesAhead · « **Reply #39 on:** July 23, 2015, 05:26 PM »

Just to create a curiosity some company should make The Last Desktop, with The Last Spinner for HD and The Last Version of Windows as OS. Input would be via The Last Kedyboard and The Last Pointing Device. Video would be displayed on The Last CRT Monitor and audio would be played on The Last Stereo Speakers.

For power you plug it into The Last A/C Wall Socket.

Deozaan · « **Reply #40 on:** July 25, 2015, 09:48 PM »

They could form The Last LLC and all their products could be branded The Last.

Whatever product they made, it would be The Last product.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #41 on:** July 26, 2015, 07:47 AM »

They could form The Last LLC and all their products could be branded The Last.

Whatever product they made, it would be The Last product.
-Deozaan (July 25, 2015, 09:48 PM)

Heh heh. I think I formed my last LLC. Unless some pleasant surprise provides incentive. Maybe I should incorporate in Delaware like the big boys?

xtabber · « **Reply #42 on:** July 29, 2015, 10:32 PM »

Just over a month ago, when I started this thread, my thinking was that a decade from now, hard disks would still be around, but only for low cost offline storage.

The announcement last week by Intel and Micron of what they call 3D Xpoint memory technology has changed that. This is non-volatile memory capable of densities up to 10 times greater than NAND, byte-addressable (unlike NAND, which is addressed in blocks) and as fast as DRAM.

Intel+Micron claim that this is not a lab concept, but a product which they expect to bring to market within a year. If so, I'd expect NAND prices to fall even faster and SSDs to become the standard for low cost offline storage. I'd also expect that a decade from now, nobody will even be making HDDs.

Deozaan · « **Reply #43 on:** July 30, 2015, 01:31 AM »

The announcement last week by Intel and Micron of what they call 3D Xpoint memory technology has changed that. This is non-volatile memory capable of densities up to 10 times greater than NAND, byte-addressable (unlike NAND, which is addressed in blocks) and as fast as DRAM.
-xtabber (July 29, 2015, 10:32 PM)

The announcement video seems like something out of the early 90s, but it explains what's going on:

Tuxman · « **Reply #44 on:** July 30, 2015, 03:11 AM »

According to Information Week, the end of 2015 will see SSDs with greater capacity than any hard disks currently available and SSDs are expected to be cost competitive with hard disks by the end of 2016.
-xtabber (June 22, 2015, 05:57 PM)

Sure. Also, no one will use a device with a real keyboard anymore, yadda yadda.

Shades · « **Reply #45 on:** July 30, 2015, 07:33 AM »

@Deozaan:
And when a hack (buffer overflow) occurs in a machine with this type of memory...does that mean that the hack remains present until (that part of) the memory is actually overwritten?

Seems like a huge security risk.

This means also that programmers need to be working more with memory again...something that higher computer languages do automatically, because many programmers made even more mistakes with this than these automatic routines do.

Another doom scenario: If a computer with this type of RAM is used in security sensitive ways...you only need to steal the computer, take out the RAM modules and (rather) simply read these out. Encryption isn't that useful because the memory will be accessed (much) slower, nullifying the speed advantage this type of RAM has over traditional RAM modules.

Until now this invention sounds great for fast pen drives...however, I'm not (yet) convinced about its ability to replace RAM.

Deozaan · « **Reply #46 on:** July 30, 2015, 04:22 PM »

@Deozaan:
And when a hack (buffer overflow) occurs in a machine with this type of memory...does that mean that the hack remains present until (that part of) the memory is actually overwritten?
-Shades (July 30, 2015, 07:33 AM)

I really don't know anything about this technology. I imagine it will be like traditional storage (HDD/SSD), but super fast like RAM. That is, no need to store things in memory temporarily. And things that are meant to be temporary will no longer have pointers pointing to them once they're no longer needed, much like deleting a file from your HDD doesn't actually erase it until you write to that sector. As far as the harddrive/memory cares it's just a random bit.

But again, I need to stress that I don't really know how RAM works, nor do I know how this new Xpoint memory stuff works.

kyrathaba · « **Reply #47 on:** July 31, 2015, 11:15 AM »

I took the plunge and went with mini PCs for replacements (Gigabyte Brix and Compulab Fit), using only SSD internally running Windows 7. With hundreds of hours of use and large amounts of data transferred, including dozens of different software programs, neither one has so much as burped...

I'm running an itty-bitty PC -- the Lenovo ThinkCentre M53 Tiny. Love it! 8 GB RAM and a 120GB SSD for the OS...

xtabber · « **Reply #48 on:** August 13, 2015, 04:04 PM »

Samsung has just introduced a 15.36 TB SSD in a standard 2.5 inch form factor. That's over 50% greater capacity than the largest hard disk drive available today.

jadinolf · « **Reply #49 on:** August 13, 2015, 06:33 PM »

I have 4 computers and 4 SSDs.

Honestly, I don't need 15 Tb.