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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

#51

Post by Alphasite_ »

m_eiman wrote: post #34
r00fus wrote: 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.

I'll keep the iMac until it gives up the ghost completely, so resale value isn't a parameter. It's more a question of "will the $400 give it enough longer life to make more sense than buying a new one now". Perhaps I should go with a 500GB SSD and transfer the movies and whatever else is taking up space to the server. And then buy a new iMac once they put the next-gen GPUs in them.

Why not a hundred dollar ssd and a drive upgrade kit for $50, so you can keep your current drive as well? Or fit a new 3TB drive while you're at it.

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

#52

Post by varjag »

fasteo wrote: post #48

>>> Despite the drop in HDD unit shipments, both sequentially and year-over-year, total capacities shipped by the two leading makers of hard drives increased in Q1 Somehow misleading title. You don't buy a HDD, you buy storage capacity, and this metric is increasing, so it seems that the HDD industry is pretty healthy.

You sell HDDs though.

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

#53

Post by imtringued »

r00fus wrote: post #23
m_eiman wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

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.

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

#54

Post by bluedino »

fasteo wrote: post #48

>>> Despite the drop in HDD unit shipments, both sequentially and year-over-year, total capacities shipped by the two leading makers of hard drives increased in Q1 Somehow misleading title. You don't buy a HDD, you buy storage capacity, and this metric is increasing, so it seems that the HDD industry is pretty healthy.

>> You don't buy a HDD, you buy storage capacity

Enterprises do. Desktop users don't.

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

#56

Post by ajuc »

creshal wrote: post #47
danielbarla wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting point, though I suspect it's slightly overstated. 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. Heck, I have a 2mbit ADSL line (since I'm living in the arse end of nowhere), and my primary PC has 3x250GB spinnies and a 100GB SSD, no cloud storage. I have a 2TB external…

> 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?

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

#57

Post by khuknows »

I find this even more interesting because a large chunk of the book "The Innovator's Dilemma" is about disruption in the storage industry.

I've not finished reading the book yet, but I think there were a few predictions about what would happen to companies that dominate the spinning drive market - it would be interesting to see how closely the predictions align with reality.

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

#58

Post by spdionis »

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…

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

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

#59

Post by mirimir »

executesorder66 wrote: post #24
rincebrain wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

> mechanical failure. How does that happen?

I had my first computer fire, last year. One of the contacts in an SSD power connector delaminated, causing a short. The SSD was toast. Or at least, the power connector had melted. The power supply was toast. But with a new power supply, the machine itself is fine :)

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

#60

Post by kabdib »

danielbarla wrote: post #38
tadfisher wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An $8,000 drive only serves to prove this point.

That drive certainly is a bit strange. For one, I would imagine lot of the potential performance is wasted by a SAS connector. That said, it might be of interest to enterprises from a few different angles (largest drive available for that form factor, easier to manage, great performance, etc). Anything that widens adoption will serve to drive prices even lower. SSDs don't necessarily beat HDDs on price per GB, they j…

I could see the density being really interesting for folks playing with other people's money (e.g., NSA "no sparrow shall fall" datacenters).
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