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HDD Shipments Down 20% in Q1 2016, Hit Multi-Year Low

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Re: HDD Shipments Down 20% in Q1 2016, Hit Multi-Year Low

#71
post #56
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sure there's several scenarios that demand huge amounts of storage - e.g. storing HD series, etc - but I'd argue that it isn't mainstream in the greater scheme of things. That was my point; almost nobody is storing HD series anymore because people want to (and in many cases legally are only able to) stream them instead.

> almost nobody is storing HD series anymore They never were. Why would you store a movie on a hard drive after you watched it?

I do store movies, and quite a few people around me too. I store only truly remarkable and important ones to me that I might watch later (and often I do), currently filling most of my 3 TB drive. I never go back to series, even the best ones are one-time watch for me.

Flac music can fill another 500 GB easily, more depending what you listen to..

Not a lot of people know how/can stream a properly good 1080p stream with high bitrates. oh, you want some subtitles because you're not an english native? Or you have fancy stereo/surround setup that you want to actually use? oh well, you better download some bigger version.

Re: HDD Shipments Down 20% in Q1 2016, Hit Multi-Year Low

#72
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to switch GPUs in an iMac, isn't it? I have considered switching out both the HDD and the DVD drive to get space to build a Fusion drive, but I kinda want to keep the DVD drive; it's the only one we have in the house. Hm. Maybe I should build a Fusion drive and add an external optical drive...

not really. it's just a pci card. just make sure you get one with a mac compatible firmware.

It's just a PCI card, buried beneath 51 disassembly steps: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2389+G...

A bit more complicated than I'd like :)

Re: HDD Shipments Down 20% in Q1 2016, Hit Multi-Year Low

#73
post #67
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a firmware bug, then. I've written a few flash storage systems (small ones, for consumer devices). If your data structures are such that you can't do an atomic commit, you shouldn't be in the marketplace. Sudden loss of power is not an excuse.

There was some widely circulated study few years ago which found that most SSD models they tested had problems on power loss. Some even bricked. They didn't publish concrete names, unfortunately. But yeah, I agree it's a bug and shouldn't happen. So what :) edit: There we go: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/fast13/fast13... Some more: http://lkcl.net/reports/ssd_analysis.html Note that the 320 recommen…

I had corruption issues with an OCZ drive on a machine with unstable power. Since adding a UPS the drive has been rock solid.

Re: HDD Shipments Down 20% in Q1 2016, Hit Multi-Year Low

#74
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would that $400 investment increase your resale price somewhat (probably not 1:1, but you will get utility out of it). Alternatively, just buy whatever's on sale for small SSDs and do a fusion-drive on it.

What 1TB SSD costs $400? The 512GB SSD I bought merely cost me $120. The 1TB Model costs a slightly more than twice that. So far I've been completly disappointed with my purchase. Compared to my 3TB HDD I've spent more money yet only see a 2x improvement in speed compared to my HDD for sequential loads. Sure it now boots much faster but that's hardly worth the money I've spent on it.

I was just about to say I've never seen 1TB SSD's anywhere near that cheap - Apple in Australia still charges $800 to add a 1TB SSD to a MacBook Pro. But I see Amazon now sells SanDisk X400 1TB SSDs for $230 USD.

Alas, everyone still seems to recommend Samsung Evo if you want reliability (I do), and $330 for a 1TB EVO 850 is still a little more than I want to pay. (Especially when a 2TB spinning disk selling for $95 now.)

Re: HDD Shipments Down 20% in Q1 2016, Hit Multi-Year Low

#75
I find this pretty interesting. Places like NetApp, Google, and Amazon can consume a lot of disk drives, and their customers don't seem particularly inclined to stop storing stuff.

So presumably this is just the shift of laptops over to SSDs rather than storage being less useful. If that is the case it would suggest that storage prices may stabilize a bit on a cents per GB basis.

Re: HDD Shipments Down 20% in Q1 2016, Hit Multi-Year Low

#76
post #16
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We won't be seeing these charts go to 0 in a few short years. Hard drives are at 2.7¢/GB while SSDs are at 21.9¢/GB, and that gap won't be closed with just one or two generations of NAND even if hard drives don't get any cheaper. We will increasingly see parts of the hard drive market killed off by SSDs, as the market for low-capacity 2.5" drives has been. Hard drives are shifting from being mainstream storage to arc…

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/samsun... Think again

Many technologies have this type of price tiering -- high end costs a fortune and exists for super-niche customers and to build out the manufacturing process. (Recall $25,000 plasma TVs 15 years ago).

If you're making large purchases right now, 3+TB SSDs are pricing out fast spinning disk tiers. You probably will see no 10k/15k drives in 2-3 years.

Re: HDD Shipments Down 20% in Q1 2016, Hit Multi-Year Low

#77
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was some widely circulated study few years ago which found that most SSD models they tested had problems on power loss. Some even bricked. They didn't publish concrete names, unfortunately. But yeah, I agree it's a bug and shouldn't happen. So what :) edit: There we go: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/fast13/fast13... Some more: http://lkcl.net/reports/ssd_analysis.html Note that the 320 recommen…

I had corruption issues with an OCZ drive on a machine with unstable power. Since adding a UPS the drive has been rock solid.

We had corruption / sudden death issues with OCZ even on machines with redundant power supplies. I do not recommend them.

Re: HDD Shipments Down 20% in Q1 2016, Hit Multi-Year Low

#78
post #66
post #2

As far as I can tell, this doesn't include SSDs. Spinning drive shipments are down -- I say GOOD RIDDANCE! I run a repair shop, and one of the top computer repairs we do is to upgrade a spinning disk to a SSD. A 240GB SSD runs $60-$65 these days, and is perfectly adequate for 99% of users. For that other 1% (which I include myself in) 512GB is adequate for 90% of those. HDD -> SSD is the single most cost-effective up…

I recommend the SSD to all my friends with older macbooks. As a christmas gift I upgraded my girlfriends 2012 macbook to a 512 gb one, and the computer went from barely working/loading anything to feeling like a brand new machine.

I'm in the same boat. Write speed increased 8.5x. Before, apps would take forever to load and respond. Now, it's on par with my work computer - a 2015 MBP.

Re: HDD Shipments Down 20% in Q1 2016, Hit Multi-Year Low

#79
post #9
post #2

As far as I can tell, this doesn't include SSDs. Spinning drive shipments are down -- I say GOOD RIDDANCE! I run a repair shop, and one of the top computer repairs we do is to upgrade a spinning disk to a SSD. A 240GB SSD runs $60-$65 these days, and is perfectly adequate for 99% of users. For that other 1% (which I include myself in) 512GB is adequate for 90% of those. HDD -> SSD is the single most cost-effective up…

is SSD reliable? With no moving parts, it ssd should be more reliable, but that's not apparently the case. What's your experience? Also, have you seen case of SSD data loss due as result of not powering up for couple years?

I built a new server for myself six months or so ago. I put in 6 x 4 TB WD Red HDDs and a pair of Samsung 850 Pro 256 GB SSDs for the OS/boot partitions.

I really like those SSDs! I replaced the (about three year old) Crucial M500 480 GB SSD in my ThinkPad W530 with a pair of them and have since put them in every machine I've got (with the exception of my new MacBook Pro).

Re: HDD Shipments Down 20% in Q1 2016, Hit Multi-Year Low

#80
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We won't be seeing these charts go to 0 in a few short years. Hard drives are at 2.7¢/GB while SSDs are at 21.9¢/GB, and that gap won't be closed with just one or two generations of NAND even if hard drives don't get any cheaper. We will increasingly see parts of the hard drive market killed off by SSDs, as the market for low-capacity 2.5" drives has been. Hard drives are shifting from being mainstream storage to arc…

We're talking about PC industry here, as in "Personal Computer"

I'm afraid I have no idea what the point of your comment is. Could you elaborate?
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