HDD Shipments Down 20% in Q1 2016, Hit Multi-Year Low • Hacker News Board

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

#11

Post by rangibaby » Fri, May 13, 2016, 4:18 AM UTC

ulfw wrote: post #10

avidwriter wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2009 Mac Pro 2.66 quad here. just did a 3.46 hex cpu upgrade. 32GB 1333 RAM sm951 AHCI pcie m2 boot drive (700MB/700MB) nvidia 1080 when it comes out. bootcamp for games. 40" 4K Philips in os x for everything else.

So what is "Mac Pro" in this now? The case and the power supply?

The ship of Theseus :-)

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

#12

Post by rincebrain » Fri, May 13, 2016, 4:22 AM UTC

pcurve wrote: post #9

ericabiz wrote: 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?

Close to 100% of the SSD failures I've seen have not been from being left off for a few years, nor from actual flash media failure, but from firmware bugs or, occasionally, mechanical failure.

(I've had very small sample size of SSDs not being powered up for a few years, but the few I have powered up after not powering on for years have had all their data retained. Ask me in another 15 years or so, though.)

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

#13

Post by boulos » Fri, May 13, 2016, 4:36 AM UTC

discodave wrote: post #8

AWS, GCP and Azure must be making hay getting cheap drives from manufacturers who want to grow revenue / move units. Regular S3 hasn't had a price cut in a while now.

You might be interested in our recent blogpost, white paper and Eric's USENIX keynote: https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/02/Google-seeks-ne... .

tl;dr: We're definitely still looking to buy spinning drives, but maybe they don't need to fit into a 2.5" or 3.5" PC sized slot.

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

#14

Post by dragontamer » Fri, May 13, 2016, 4:42 AM UTC

Aelinsaar wrote: post #4

I'd love to see a graph with the same scale, charting the state of SSD sales.

Especially if the SSDs from iPads / tablets are included.

Although there's a big difference from eMMC crap and (even a low-cost budget) SATA3 SSD.

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

#15

Post by arthurfm » Fri, May 13, 2016, 5:32 AM UTC

pcurve wrote: post #9

ericabiz wrote: 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?

> have you seen case of SSD data loss due as result of not powering up for couple years?

In normal circumstances an SSD is not going to lose data if left powered off for two years. [1]

[1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/9248/the-truth-about-ssd-data-...

All in all, there is absolutely zero reason to worry about SSD data retention in typical client environment. Remember that the figures presented here are for a drive that has already passed its endurance rating, so for new drives the data retention is considerably higher, typically over ten years for MLC NAND based SSDs. If you buy a drive today and stash it away, the drive itself will become totally obsolete quicker than it will lose its data. Besides, given the cost of SSDs, it's not cost efficient to use them for cold storage anyway, so if you're looking to archive data I would recommend going with hard drives for cost reasons alone.

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

#16

Post by jstx » Fri, May 13, 2016, 5:36 AM UTC

wtallis wrote: post #6

ericabiz wrote: 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…

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

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

#17

Post by rzzzt » Fri, May 13, 2016, 5:37 AM UTC

boulos wrote: post #13

discodave wrote: post #8

AWS, GCP and Azure must be making hay getting cheap drives from manufacturers who want to grow revenue / move units. Regular S3 hasn't had a price cut in a while now.

You might be interested in our recent blogpost, white paper and Eric's USENIX keynote: https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/02/Google-seeks-ne... . tl;dr: We're definitely still looking to buy spinning drives, but maybe they don't need to fit into a 2.5" or 3.5" PC sized slot.

Reading the suggestions about form factor in the white paper, I'd love to see full-height 5¼" drives spinning at 10K that look like their MFM ancestors, only having ~200,000 times more capacity. :)

(Also, the part which discusses hybrid SMR drives that allocate a conventionally recorded section on the platters for GC and hot/cold data separation purposes – would a small SSD be applicable for this functionality?)

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

#18

Post by m_eiman » Fri, May 13, 2016, 6:15 AM UTC

beachstartup wrote: post #3

ericabiz wrote: 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 have a 2009 mac pro. first upgrade: more ram second upgrade: ssd third upgrade: video card and monitor. it's on track to give me 10 years of use now, if not more (i'll probably succumb to upgrade fever before then). knocking on wood . the ram and ssd were a given, but i was surprised at how much more 2d performance the video card delivered. i really just wanted 4k for the real estate, but the actual speed at which…

I have a 2010 iMac that's unbearably slow at the moment, and since I suspect that the hdd is the reason I'm considering upgrading to a 1TB SSD (since I don't want less storage space).. But including installation, that's roughly $400. And spending $400 to prolong the life of an iMac with a fairly crappy GPU seems a lot. But on the other hand a new iMac (with a non-Intel GPU) is $2000 or more. Hard decision!

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

#19

Post by frou_dh » Fri, May 13, 2016, 6:33 AM UTC

avidwriter wrote: post #5

beachstartup wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i have a 2009 mac pro. first upgrade: more ram second upgrade: ssd third upgrade: video card and monitor. it's on track to give me 10 years of use now, if not more (i'll probably succumb to upgrade fever before then). knocking on wood . the ram and ssd were a given, but i was surprised at how much more 2d performance the video card delivered. i really just wanted 4k for the real estate, but the actual speed at which…

2009 Mac Pro 2.66 quad here. just did a 3.46 hex cpu upgrade. 32GB 1333 RAM sm951 AHCI pcie m2 boot drive (700MB/700MB) nvidia 1080 when it comes out. bootcamp for games. 40" 4K Philips in os x for everything else.

If you want ultimate speed then take the RAM module out of Slot 4 because that CPU natively wants a triple-channel arrangement

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

#20

Post by Joeri » Fri, May 13, 2016, 6:38 AM UTC

beachstartup wrote: post #3

ericabiz wrote: 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 have a 2009 mac pro. first upgrade: more ram second upgrade: ssd third upgrade: video card and monitor. it's on track to give me 10 years of use now, if not more (i'll probably succumb to upgrade fever before then). knocking on wood . the ram and ssd were a given, but i was surprised at how much more 2d performance the video card delivered. i really just wanted 4k for the real estate, but the actual speed at which…

My 2009 core 2 duo is still running smoothly with maxed out ram and an ssd upgrade. Granted, it doesn't do games, and I wouldn't want to train a neural net on it, but even as a primary desktop it's still nice to use.