It’s virtually impossible to find a desktop, laptop or Mini PC that doesn’t include an SSD. These drives are more efficient, faster and more robust than their predecessors, although their capacity is significantly lower. Although the HDDs at the professional and industrial level are still very important, they could eventually disappear in about five years.
The hard drive market has been in continuous contraction for over a decade and shows no signs of stopping. Mechanical drives have the big problem of performance, which is very low, with read and write speeds of only 100 MB/s. In addition, they have vibration problems which, when there are many units in a system, can be a problem.
Say goodbye to hard drives
Who indicated the date of the death of hard drives was Shawn Rosemarin, Vice President of Research and Development pure storage. This company may not look like you, but it specializes in professional storage
He pointed out that the problem with this type of units lies in the energy consumption. A mechanical hard drive can consume up to 10 times more power than an SSD. Mechanical parts, such as actuators and discs, represent a significant energy expenditure for their operation.
Rosemarin points to the falling price of TB in SSDs as a key driver. Due to this reduction,Hard drives could stop being manufactured in 2028.
Rosemarin is aware that the user does not care excessively about the power consumption of the hard disk, which is normal. But he wishes to point out that more than 3% of the world’s electricity is used in the Data centers and what about him 35% of said energy they consume storage systems. He also comments that most of them are hard drives.
He comments that the price of TB on SSDs is down, the HDD replacement cost will also drop. This indicates that the presence of hard drives will fall on a larger scale. Moreover, he considers that the consumption in data centers, thanks to change will fall between 80 and 90%.
A question that you have been asked relates to a possible drop in the price of electricity. He points out that this does not seem feasible in the short term without advances in nuclear technology. He also comments that there are countries and regions that have already adopted notable energy restrictions.
He did not miss the opportunity to say that “I did not mention the poor performance of hard disks in terms of I/O transmission speed”
The day will come, but putting a date on it is still very exaggerated
We all know there will come a day when hard drives will stop being manufactured and produced. To state that it will be in five or ten years is to exaggerate. Seagate and Western Digital are planning hard drives up to 50TB which are expected to arrive in 2030.
It’s pretty drastic to say that in just five years these will stop being made. What seems likely is that units of 4TB or less will cease to be manufactured, that would be normal. 500 GB hard drives are no longer (or barely) produced today, they don’t make the slightest sense.
We estimate that it is more likely that the minimum capacity of these units will increase in the coming years. They still make sense for massive data storage, although admittedly the factors Rosemarin points to for stopping them are obvious.
