Computers & Electronics

Do you think there will be a day where mechanical drives no longer exist?

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Deal Guru
Aug 14, 2007
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Do you think there will be a day where mechanical drives no longer exist?

I am guessing yes obviously, the question is how many years until we see it happen and all we are using are SSDs?
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Dec 3, 2010
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Not soon, there has been a major advancement with HDDs where their size might be even bigger than it already is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat-assi ... _recording with prices being relatively the same.

If HAMR drives do become big :razz: on the market, it'l be the same scenerio as it is now. Where SSDs are faster but cost more per gig than HDDs.
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Jun 27, 2004
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I think servers will stick with mechanical drives for awhile, due to write cycles.
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Jun 17, 2012
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In another world
When SSD prices are comparable to HD prices.
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Mar 23, 2009
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I run a 1 TB SSD in my NAS actually, although I use HDDs for backup of the NAS.
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Dec 12, 2009
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There's space for both to coexist. It's difficult to expect pricing to equalize. That said, I just don't understand why laptops still use HDD as the standard. There's not that much price difference between 500 gig HDD and 250 gig SSD. Most people would sacrifice a bit of storage for a lot more speed.
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Jul 19, 2010
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rabbit wrote: I think servers will stick with mechanical drives for awhile, due to write cycles.
I predict that someday the new technological advancement in ssd storage will make today's write cycles extinct by utilizing the same technology that made the Etch-a-Sketch famous, although without shaking it...
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Aug 28, 2014
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Hard drives will probably stick around for a while on emerging markets, but I think they will stop being offered at the consumer level by 2020. People are transitioning to portable devices exclusively and mechanical drives just require too much power and space.

SSD's have been getting shrunk down for thinner laptops and fairly soon I think the 2.5" standard will go out of style.

http://images.anandtech.com/doci/6293/DSC_8384.jpg

I personally will never deal with the spin up time, the clicking noises and the slow speeds of a mechanical drive ever again.
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nabiul wrote: Hard drives will probably stick around for a while on emerging markets, but I think they will stop being offered at the consumer level by 2020. People are transitioning to portable devices exclusively and mechanical drives just require too much power and space.

SSD's have been getting shrunk down for thinner laptops and fairly soon I think the 2.5" standard will go out of style.

http://images.anandtech.com/doci/6293/DSC_8384.jpg

I personally will never deal with the spin up time, the clicking noises and the slow speeds of a mechanical drive ever again.
Just pop up in my head the scratching noise from vinyl records and how they're in demand by many people.
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Nov 27, 2005
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I'm going to guess 10 years. The $/GB price of SSDs is dropping much faster than hard drives, and that's really the only thing that's keeping hard drives alive.
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Aug 2, 2004
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Hard drives should be extinct in the desktop

Long term storage and servers will continue using spindles for a while

Imagine trying to populate a 50 Terabyte NAS with SSDs?

It would not be financially feasible
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Dec 1, 2010
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will888 wrote: There's space for both to coexist. It's difficult to expect pricing to equalize. That said, I just don't understand why laptops still use HDD as the standard. There's not that much price difference between 500 gig HDD and 250 gig SSD. Most people would sacrifice a bit of storage for a lot more speed.
This, I totally agree. Especially when you see laptops selling for $500~600 offering all these perks like a 1TB HDD and 8GB ram with i3 or sometimes even an i5. For that amount of money I would expect to have at least a reliable 250GB SSD in there for that price I'm paying. No reason a laptop should have a HDD anymore, its just a complete joke.
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Aug 22, 2006
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board123 wrote: I'm going to guess 10 years. The $/GB price of SSDs is dropping much faster than hard drives, and that's really the only thing that's keeping hard drives alive.
That's my estimate too. Or maybe like 15.
SSDs are coming down, but not nearly fast enough.
Hard drives are literally an order of magnitude cheaper currently.
I don't see the pricing falling off a cliff any time soon. Steady decline? Sure.
Gee wrote: Imagine trying to populate a 50 Terabyte NAS with SSDs?

It would not be financially feasible
Yeah really...
I've spent like $10000 on hard drives this year.
If it was (even the cheapest) SSDs I could find that number would be closer to $100000.
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Aug 2, 2010
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heyyahblah wrote: This, I totally agree. Especially when you see laptops selling for $500~600 offering all these perks like a 1TB HDD and 8GB ram with i3 or sometimes even an i5. For that amount of money I would expect to have at least a reliable 250GB SSD in there for that price I'm paying. No reason a laptop should have a HDD anymore, its just a complete joke.
It's not a complete joke. It's not financially feasible to offer the laptop for the price you want with an SSD.
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Jun 17, 2013
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Eventually....no time soon. Heck floppy disk drives still exist.
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Aug 22, 2006
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eonibm wrote: It's not a complete joke. It's not financially feasible to offer the laptop for the price you want with an SSD.
It's getting to the point of where it almost is feasible.
I don't know what the bulk pricing on drives is, but assuming SSDs and HDDs are equal in terms of costs relative to retail, we're approaching the level at where a 500GB HDD and something like a 128GB SSD are about the same price.
1TB and 256GB still has a bit of a gap but I can't see that lasting more than a couple years.

The only place HDDs are still competitive (and will remain competitive) is the large end.
A 2TB SSD is still like a grand. I can buy a 2TB drive that'll fit in (some) notebooks for $80.
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eonibm wrote: It's not a complete joke. It's not financially feasible to offer the laptop for the price you want with an SSD.
Not quite so, if you compare retail prices certain sizes are pretty much on par at the retail cost level.
death_hawk wrote: It's getting to the point of where it almost is feasible.
I don't know what the bulk pricing on drives is, but assuming SSDs and HDDs are equal in terms of costs relative to retail, we're approaching the level at where a 500GB HDD and something like a 128GB SSD are about the same price.
1TB and 256GB still has a bit of a gap but I can't see that lasting more than a couple years.

The only place HDDs are still competitive (and will remain competitive) is the large end.
A 2TB SSD is still like a grand. I can buy a 2TB drive that'll fit in (some) notebooks for $80.
I agree but not so much so of a gap if you do some comparison, we are only priced at the retail level, so we don't know what prices manufacturers would be offered at the bulk level.

500GB 5400 RPM laptop HDD's are price point level with 120GB SSD's on the retail level.

1 TB WD BLUE 5400 RPM laptop drive is about $90 retail. While ADATA Premier SP550 240GB SATA 2.5'' Solid State Drive is $90 retail, so depending on what manufacturer or what deals they get in price its almost neck and neck.

Just as an example this Laptop from Bestbuy is just an ACER for $700 (on sale) regular $800 pricetag.
http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/ace ... ageIndex=1

i5 CPU, 1TB HDD, 12GB ram, 920M Nvidia graphics card. I'm pretty sure for that hefty price tag, they could drop the ram to 8GB from 12GB and include a 250GB SSD. Or even lower clock the processor to i3 from the i5 keep the 920M graphics and still include a 250GB SSD.

That laptop is nice, but I wouldn't pay $800 to not have an SSD on it.

I'm sure there are better prices, but this Lenovo i3 is $529
http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/len ... a36b1cen02

Add 4GB more ram for $35 (retail) (total of 8GB in machine) and a 256GB MLC nand SSD for $110 (retail), or a cheaper TLC NAND SSD for $90-100 (retail) and the cost pretty much is $700, minus the Geforce 920M mobile graphics that the Acer is boasting for $100 more. This LENOVO one has Intel HD 4400 on board graphics. But I'm sure manufactures could add the 920M graphics for $100 more and would be priced the same as the ACER ($800), only cost is scaling down the CPU from i5 to i3, which IMO on a laptop i3 with 920M graphics and SSD drive I think would offer superior performance, IMO.

These are just random examples I grabbed from BB, not the "best deals" I'm sure you could find better, I just used the quickest comparison, because we know these Big Box stores often charge more if you shop around.
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death_hawk wrote: It's getting to the point of where it almost is feasible.
I don't know what the bulk pricing on drives is, but assuming SSDs and HDDs are equal in terms of costs relative to retail, we're approaching the level at where a 500GB HDD and something like a 128GB SSD are about the same price.
1TB and 256GB still has a bit of a gap but I can't see that lasting more than a couple years.

The only place HDDs are still competitive (and will remain competitive) is the large end.
A 2TB SSD is still like a grand. I can buy a 2TB drive that'll fit in (some) notebooks for $80.
Yeah but people want a 500GB drive not a 128GB one. When they can get a 500GB SSD at the same price as a 128GB SSD is now then sure, but not until then.
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Dec 1, 2010
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eonibm wrote: Yeah but people want a 500GB drive not a 128GB one. When they can get a 500GB SSD at the same price as a 128GB SSD is now then sure, but not until then.
They can get a 256GB drive. On a Windows 10 vanilla install and 10% over-provision (something I did myself) call the over-provision a recovery partition or apps if you will, pre-bundled junk, that still gives you 189GB free on the laptop.

Still not a bad trade off. People that usually carry their laptop on them, you can get a tiny external 1GB USB 3.0 and take it on the go. (for now).

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