2.5" hard drives have stagnated. Are they going extinct soon?

Mr Evil

Limp Gawd
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Although I switched all my PCs to flash storage years ago, I still use hard drives for external backup purposes. 2.5" drives are a nice portable size for this. The 5TB drives I purchased 5 years ago are over half full though, so I thought I'd go and get some bigger ones. I had a look around, and the largest ones you can get now are... still 5TB.

Does that mean no one cares enough to keep improving the tech? I don't want to use flash drives for this because the retention isn't good enough. 3.5" hard drives continue to increase in capacity (up to 20TB now), so I could use those, but they are less portable.
 
Although I switched all my PCs to flash storage years ago, I still use hard drives for external backup purposes. 2.5" drives are a nice portable size for this. The 5TB drives I purchased 5 years ago are over half full though, so I thought I'd go and get some bigger ones. I had a look around, and the largest ones you can get now are... still 5TB.

Does that mean no one cares enough to keep improving the tech? I don't want to use flash drives for this because the retention isn't good enough. 3.5" hard drives continue to increase in capacity (up to 20TB now), so I could use those, but they are less portable.
With laptops all pretty much using NVMe or SSDs these days, what is the remaining market for > 5 TB 2.5" drives? I'm going to guess it's pretty small, and the remaining HDD manufacturers are all focused on solid state these days, plus 3.5" larger and larger HDDs.

Myself, I could certainly use a 10 TB 2.5" form factor drive. But I'm not banking on it.
 
I have a pile of 12 1TB 2.5" sitting behind me. The main use now is slapping them free of charge in a customers PC as a backup/data drive or using them to hand over recovered data.
 
I don’t see much use case for them. The near future appears to be M.2 and 3.5”.
 
Yeah, there's not a big market for that size. Originally for laptops, there's not a lot of new laptops using that form factor. m.2 is used in laptops that want performance from this decade. Servers are more likely to use 3.5" for big drives, and maybe u.2 for a 2.5" size drive; 2.5" SATA/SAS is limiting.
 
Laptops were a big part of the development of 2.5 drives, with them moving toward SSDs sata/nvmes, the need or develpment for 2.5 mechanical has stopped. The 5TB was not part of the usual laptop drives as it was a 15mm thick drive, but i dont think we will see a bigger version of those either. SSDs are getting bigger and bigger, we have 4tb sata ssds for less than $250, we will likely see 8tb be comon in the next few years, i honestly dont think spinners will remain alive outside really big sizes, and even we already seen u.3 that are 32tb drives, the problem is price.
 
I can't wait until I can replace all my spinning rust HDDs with SSDs, maybe even NVMe drives. Of course, since I'm not one of Uncle Scrooge's nephews I will have to wait.
 
I can't wait until I can replace all my spinning rust HDDs with SSDs, maybe even NVMe drives. Of course, since I'm not one of Uncle Scrooge's nephews I will have to wait.
It has been getting pretty affordable to go all solid state drives in the past year. It is nice never having to hear the spinning rust randomly spinning up for no reason.
 
Yes they are great for a large size mobile drive but fail in every other aspect. And who needs more then one large portable drive?
 
Yes they are great for a large size mobile drive but fail in every other aspect. And who needs more then one large portable drive?
Well actually I do. One for my backups and one for my large collection of photos, used with Lightroom and Photoshop. If a 10 TB portable HDD were available, I would buy it.
 
Well actually I do. One for my backups and one for my large collection of photos, used with Lightroom and Photoshop. If a 10 TB portable HDD were available, I would buy it.
3.5" are portable and better in every respect unless you need to tuck it in your cargo pants and are were there are no outlets. You didn't mention that at all.
 
3.5" are portable and better in every respect unless you need to tuck it in your cargo pants and are were there are no outlets. You didn't mention that at all.
True enough. But one of my use cases is on a plane, in coach, a/k/a peasant class, steerage. I use the seat-back table from the seat on front of me to support my laptop and I sort of juggle the 2.5" ext. HDD. A 3.5" HDD is much heavier and requires 12V from an external power source. Not sure how I could jiggle that larger drive. My laptop bag has only so much space and my shoulder has only so much weight capacity. There is only one power plug for seats in coach and I use that for my laptop. On some airlines, you don't even get that power plug unless you are in busniess ($$) or first ($$$$) class.

I used to travel all the time on business, and air travel with a laptop has definitely gotten harder over the years.
 
3.5" are portable and better in every respect unless you need to tuck it in your cargo pants and are were there are no outlets. You didn't mention that at all.

Not from the power consumption aspect they're not.
 
...don't require external power ;)
This is what puts me off 3.5" drives the most. Having to carry a drive and a power adaptor is awkward. A bus powered 3.5" drive is theoretically possible using USB-PD, but I've never seen one, and even if one existed, ATX motherboards that support USB-PD are like hen's teeth.

Anyway, there must be at least three people in this thread that want larger 2.5" drives. I'm sure we'd buy two drives each, so that's like... six sales that HD manufacturers are missing out on here. What are they waiting for?!
 
That's an interesting point (regarding USB PD), hadn't thought about it (still stuck in the non-PD mindset, heck barely have any USB-C systems and devices)

While I can understand why no one is investing in mechanical 2.5" development, I would still like something, anything larger than 4TB that is NOT SMR
Have a bunch of non-SMR Seagate 4TBs, and could really use either :
1) "Slim" 4TBs
2) "Chonky" >= 6TBs
 
This is what puts me off 3.5" drives the most. Having to carry a drive and a power adaptor is awkward. A bus powered 3.5" drive is theoretically possible using USB-PD, but I've never seen one, and even if one existed, ATX motherboards that support USB-PD are like hen's teeth.

Anyway, there must be at least three people in this thread that want larger 2.5" drives. I'm sure we'd buy two drives each, so that's like... six sales that HD manufacturers are missing out on here. What are they waiting for?!
Oh, probably another 60 million or so potential customers. Or maybe 600 million for 10+ TB 2.5" drives.
 
Laptops were a big part of the development of 2.5 drives, with them moving toward SSDs sata/nvmes, the need or develpment for 2.5 mechanical has stopped. The 5TB was not part of the usual laptop drives as it was a 15mm thick drive, but i dont think we will see a bigger version of those either. SSDs are getting bigger and bigger, we have 4tb sata ssds for less than $250, we will likely see 8tb be comon in the next few years, i honestly dont think spinners will remain alive outside really big sizes, and even we already seen u.3 that are 32tb drives, the problem is price.

It's not just the death of laptops with HDDs to blame, although the collapse in demand probably means there will never be higher capacity 2TB models enough though the "ugly" capacity number problem has gone away.

Standard height, standard vertical density, 2.5" drives can only fit 2 platters, vs 5 for 3.5" models. Density growth hit a wall and slowed to 10-20%/year around the point that a 3.5" platter could hold 1TB and a 2.5" platter 500GB. This became a problem for marketing because while 3.5" drives could go up a TB or 2 each time, laptop drives would only going up a few hundred GB and a 1.3 TB drive has a less attractive looking capacity number.

Gross numbers were a problem for 2 platter drives until they had a 100% increase in platter density and could offer 2 platter 2 TB models. Likewise tighter vertical density had to increase from 5 to ~8 platters before being able to stuff a third platter into a standard height 2.5" model. Top of the line 3.5" drives are around 2 TB/platter now, so there's no technical reason they couldn't make a 2.5" drive with 3x 1TB platters; I think the platter count tops out at 9 which might be enough to stuff a 4th platter into a 2.5" chassis allowing for a standard height 4 platter 4TB model now, with 5 TB soonish.

But now it's not just that laptops with 2.5" drives are essentially gone, so are servers using them (pre-flash they had lower average seek times and though more expensive per TB than 3.5" drives were somewhat faster), and portable SSDs have grown large and cheap enough to have taken away most of the potential market for a 2.5" portable HDD. I haven't seen any size based breakdown, but I'd be stunned if the 2.5" HDD market hasn't collapsed much faster than the 3.5" one which lives on because flash can't match the cost/TB of big 3.5" HDDs. The current HDD market is mostly nearline/offline bulk storage for data centers; everything else is secondary. For 3.5" consumer NASes that's not a huge problem because excluding SMR (some data center applications do fit into write once scenarios where SMR isn't a problem) consumer and enterprise bulk storage want similar things from our drives.

As is, I doubt we'll ever see anything bigger than 2TB in standard height and am very skeptical about bigger than 5TB in 15mm models because the market needed to cover even the limited R&D costs of downporting work done on the 3.5" form factor just doesn't exist anymore.
 
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Yeah all the new development goes into high capacity data center drives. The customers will buy even at a higher price/TB because the total cost is lower with fewer drives.
 
For consumers, I think that HDDs, as opposed to SSDs and NVMe drives, are going to be an increasingly niche product category. For people with large video or photo collections, sure they will continue to purchase HDDs. But those average consumers, they will end up with external drives that are SSD-based.

It won't surprise me if case manufacturers introduce products without 3.5" drive slots, in the next year or two.
 
An issue is that in the past 5-6 years virtually all 2.5" HDDs, along with the majority of 3.5" under a certain capacity, have become shingled (SMR), which is non-ideal for lots of writes. Only NAS/enterprise grade for certain models are CMR (non-shingled).

Even SSDs as capacities increase for consumer drives have headed into using far denser flash (QLC) which has worse perf (endurance, speed after cache is filled). One way or another despite the prices decreasing for flash one still has to pay more for better quality. That said such things may not be as relevant to a casual user and I'd probably still choose QLC over SMR.
 
An issue is that in the past 5-6 years virtually all 2.5" HDDs, along with the majority of 3.5" under a certain capacity, have become shingled (SMR), which is non-ideal for lots of writes. Only NAS/enterprise grade for certain models are CMR (non-shingled).

Even SSDs as capacities increase for consumer drives have headed into using far denser flash (QLC) which has worse perf (endurance, speed after cache is filled). One way or another despite the prices decreasing for flash one still has to pay more for better quality. That said such things may not be as relevant to a casual user and I'd probably still choose QLC over SMR.
SSDs are so much faster than HDDs, especially for short files or transactions, no contest. Game over for HDDs, almost. Our laptops are all NVMe now. My desktop is becoming more and more NVMe and SSD. My remaining HDDs are all 8+ TB.

Honestly I don't think I could even give away my old (but very good) HGST 1, 2, and 4 TB drives.
 
My one concern about SSDs is data longevity in a powered off state. While a study ~8 years ago showed that only after the max TBW had been exceeded (so, not a common scenario) would NAND flash experience data loss after as little as a year when unpowered (dependent on temperature) I have wondered whether say flash density affects this.

Given the endurance rating is an industry specification maybe it's an irrelevant concern, though have read user experiences of memory cards losing data within a year or few but I don't believe those use the same type of flash as regular SDDs.

Then again, /r/DataHoarder has said it's beneficial to power on HDDs every few years to prevent the heads from seizing. So I suppose either way it's useful to periodically power on and potentially read cold storage as a preventative measure.
 
Honestly I don't think I could even give away my old (but very good) HGST 1, 2, and 4 TB drives.

Of course you could. Do a "sold listings" search for those drives on eBay. They are bought and sold almost every single day.
Try to remember that this is the [H]ard and most of us don't represent typical computer users. On average we make more money and have nicer systems than the typical computer user.
 
My one concern about SSDs is data longevity in a powered off state. While a study ~8 years ago showed that only after the max TBW had been exceeded (so, not a common scenario) would NAND flash experience data loss after as little as a year when unpowered (dependent on temperature) I have wondered whether say flash density affects this.

Given the endurance rating is an industry specification maybe it's an irrelevant concern, though have read user experiences of memory cards losing data within a year or few but I don't believe those use the same type of flash as regular SDDs.

Then again, /r/DataHoarder has said it's beneficial to power on HDDs every few years to prevent the heads from seizing. So I suppose either way it's useful to periodically power on and potentially read cold storage as a preventative measure.
I do a single annual full alphabetical data defrag of my SSDs.

Basically it lifts and replants everything on the drive so it all gets 'energised' at least every year. Not had any issues since I started in 2012 with this approach. Just once a year.
 
Try to remember that this is the [H]ard and most of us don't represent typical computer users. On average we make more money and have nicer systems than the typical computer user.
True. Plus we care a lot more than the average. My SO is always asking me why I still need a desktop at all. But my desktop doubles as the family "NAS" server, and I also store multiple TBs of RAW photos from my DSLR.
 
One factor (perhaps overly paranoid on my part) of flash vs rust
True. Plus we care a lot more than the average. My SO is always asking me why I still need a desktop at all. But my desktop doubles as the family "NAS" server, and I also store multiple TBs of RAW photos from my DSLR.
Boggles my mind that millennials / zoomers are apparently lacking in tech savvy (eg. not knowing basic filesystem concepts, etc.)
 
Boggles my mind that millennials / zoomers are apparently lacking in tech savvy (eg. not knowing basic filesystem concepts, etc.)
Hey. As a born and raised Boomer, I resemble that remark. :ROFLMAO: Bonus points to anyone who can identify the source for this quote.

Most people have no real idea of the tech inside their products. How many people ever knew how to set the distributor dwell angle or check the gap in their spark plugs? Or even know (or care) about the difference between a carburetor-powered engine and a fuel-injected powered engine. Or the the difference between MBR or GPT drives? Does it even matter to someone who just does email, web browsing and social media, and maybe a letter here and there?
 
Of course you could. Do a "sold listings" search for those drives on eBay. They are bought and sold almost every single day.
So I just went over to eBay and checked out the completed sales for these drives. For 1 and 2 TB drives, I would make only enough for a few cups of coffee after paying for the "free shipping." Obviously the companies selling these drives know how to ship for less money than I do. I would need to sell 3-4 at a time, with USPS flat rate shipping, to make any decent money.

Now for 6 and 8 TB drives, there is decent money to be made. But I want to hang on to those drives for a while, use them for offsite backup, etc.
 
So I just went over to eBay and checked out the completed sales for these drives. For 1 and 2 TB drives, I would make only enough for a few cups of coffee after paying for the "free shipping." Obviously the companies selling these drives know how to ship for less money than I do. I would need to sell 3-4 at a time, with USPS flat rate shipping, to make any decent money.

Now for 6 and 8 TB drives, there is decent money to be made. But I want to hang on to those drives for a while, use them for offsite backup, etc.

Right. It's possible to give them away. :)
 
2.5" high capacity portable hard drives probably fall into a niche that isn't worth servicing. If you want something durable it's SSD. If you want something big, it's 3.5" HDD or SSD. If you want huge you can't forget about tape. Ultrium 8 store up to 30 TB and transfer speeds of around 275 MBps sustained for real workloads. Ultrium 9 is 45 TB per tape and even faster. Tapes are cheap but the drives are scary expensive.

I like 2.5" USB HDDs too and use them occasionally. Have many 4TB units but they have never felt too small.

Couple of examples of a real life write to tape from this week. If it's serious data of a serious size it's the only way to go for me.

1675890445235.png

1675891021602.png
 
As many above have already said, 2.5" spinners are (for all intents and purposes) a dead product. At the low (Sub 2TB) end they are so close in price to SSD's that they are generally not worth it. The only density work that was really being done was in high-rpm drives (3.5" 15K drives generally used 2.5" platters) and once SSD's overtook performance that work ended. Z-height decreases with persistently thin laptops killed the laptop models and SSD's have taken over in all but the cheapest laptops at this point. If you have a need for bulk storage people have "The Cloud" or a local NAS or even external hard drive. Basically 2.5" drives were hit from every side and everything from the decrease in SSD pricing to to physical limits and waning interest in platter and head R&D because of all these reasons, 2.5" is dead.
 
2.5" high capacity portable hard drives probably fall into a niche that isn't worth servicing. If you want something durable it's SSD. If you want something big, it's 3.5" HDD or SSD. If you want huge you can't forget about tape. Ultrium 8 store up to 30 TB and transfer speeds of around 275 MBps sustained for real workloads. Ultrium 9 is 45 TB per tape and even faster. Tapes are cheap but the drives are scary expensive.

I like 2.5" USB HDDs too and use them occasionally. Have many 4TB units but they have never felt too small.

Couple of examples of a real life write to tape from this week. If it's serious data of a serious size it's the only way to go for me.

View attachment 547562
View attachment 547563
Many, many years ago, I used Exabyte tape drives, used off eBay, to back up my systems. But then drives got much bigger, and the next step up was Ultrium. That's when I switched to disk-to-disk backup, with an offline backup of the backup disk. That was back in 2008.
 
As many above have already said, 2.5" spinners are (for all intents and purposes) a dead product. At the low (Sub 2TB) end they are so close in price to SSD's that they are generally not worth it. The only density work that was really being done was in high-rpm drives (3.5" 15K drives generally used 2.5" platters) and once SSD's overtook performance that work ended. Z-height decreases with persistently thin laptops killed the laptop models and SSD's have taken over in all but the cheapest laptops at this point. If you have a need for bulk storage people have "The Cloud" or a local NAS or even external hard drive. Basically 2.5" drives were hit from every side and everything from the decrease in SSD pricing to to physical limits and waning interest in platter and head R&D because of all these reasons, 2.5" is dead.
I think I have to agree. 2.5" HDD is dead. The form factor probably has some life with SSDs. But within a couple years, I'm guessing that 2.5" SSDs will fade away as NVMe drives drop in price. Then imagine the reduced sizes of cases for motherboards that use only NVMe and don't support SATA.

Ironic in a way. Usually the larger form factor drives fade away in favor of the smaller form factor drives.

Back when, in pre-PC days, 14" drives ruled. Then 8" drives appeared, with the same form factor as 8" floppy drives, and 14" drives became niche and then disappeared. Same with 5.25" HDDs, to fit into a 5.25" floppy drive bay, including half-high drives. So 8" faded away. Now the 5.25" form factor is dead except for ODD, because 3.5" HDDs took over the world. So in the normal course of things, you would expect 3.5" drives to fade away, but that's not what is happening. Contrary to historical trends.

Ain't gonna happen, but imagine the platter technology 20+ TB drives used to create a 5.25" or better yet, an 8" drive. For the 8" drive, probably north of 100TB a drive.
 
Then imagine the reduced sizes of cases for motherboards that use only NVMe and don't support SATA.

We're almost there. Tower cases fans instead of drive cages are common, but they currently put a couple places to put a 2.5" drive. I need to find another old tower server case sooner rather than later or I'm gonna have to pay real money for it. :(
 
We're almost there. Tower cases fans instead of drive cages are common, but they currently put a couple places to put a 2.5" drive. I need to find another old tower server case sooner rather than later or I'm gonna have to pay real money for it. :(
Ah. A few months ago I posted in the FS/FT forum thhat I had a Corsair 800D case for sale. No one wanted the whole case, but someone bought the hot-swap drive circuit board off me. I saved all six (with two spares) hot swap drive sleds, if you are interested. The rest of the case, sad to say. got recycled.
 
We're almost there. Tower cases fans instead of drive cages are common, but they currently put a couple places to put a 2.5" drive. I need to find another old tower server case sooner rather than later or I'm gonna have to pay real money for it. :(

Flat mount will probably linger for a while since all it needs it a few screw holes on a surface somewhere. Much cheaper than the material for a drive cage.
 
16 2.5” drive bays up front and nothing financially interesting to put in them. 😔

If the 5TB 2.5” drives came down to like $75, that would be nice.
 
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