Will Hard Disks become Obsolete in Near future

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maverick786us

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With the introduction of Flash Memory in SONY VIAO in which OS in instantly loaded from the memory, will it make Hard Disks obsolute by replacing it with Flash Memory?
 
I think it will eventually, however these days mechanical drives will still be superior due to cost and capacity factors...

Do you have a link to this VIAO?
 
High end Sony VIAO Laptops uses flash memory instead of hard disks to boot OS. IF you google this, you can find several links
 
Eventually yes, but not in the near future (1+ year).
 
Hard drives will definitely be dead within the decade just like cassettes and VHS have been nearly wiped away by CDs and DVDs.

They have a fixed cost that can never be gotten around so eventually flash will just catch up in the price/GB ratio.
 
Its all going to be about price. Once SSD drives are within 20% or so of HDDs, SSD's will become the new standard. My prediction is that this will happen by 2012.
 
Doubt that. We really don't know the reliability of SSD's. It may take years to find out.
 
For desktop use yes. Most people do not need a 500 gig boot drive.

Hard drives will be around for quite a while in server use for bulk storage though.

Don
 
As technology advances, localized systems begins to unify. For example, in todays top-end MB architecture, NB is effectively dead. The PCI-E and Memory Controller are now found within the CPU. In few months, the onboard GPU will also be found within the CPU die.

The same thing will happen to the data storage architecture. Soon, system RAM and HDD will begin to unify thanks to recent advancements in DRAM technology (including memristor). Then it will unify with the CPU cache and registers. In 20 years, the architecture of a domestic PC will be unrecognizable.
 
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Define "hard-disks" first. SSD's and RAM drives can be considered hard drives. It's more of a concept or technology rather than a label.
 
Ockie said:
Define "hard-disks" first. SSD's and RAM drives can be considered hard drives. It's more of a concept or technology rather than a label.
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Well, since Hard Disks were an advancement of the floppy disk technology, we can assume he was talking about a drive with a spinning platter. SSD's and Ram drives do not have spinning disks, and so do not fit the concept of a "Hard Disk" as mentioned in the thread title. Since the OP specifically mentioned flash memory was replacing hard disks, I think it is a safe assumption that he is wondering if the spinning disk magnetic storage media was in danger of being obsolete.

IMHO, yes they are for desktop and laptop use.

Don
 
I dont know, i'd give it a few years till one can say HDDs are obsolete. With HDDs increasing in capacity very quickly, they make for good storage drives.

A decade sounds about right.
 
DonDon said:
Well, since Hard Disks were an advancement of the floppy disk technology, we can assume he was talking about a drive with a spinning platter. SSD's and Ram drives do not have spinning disks, and so do not fit the concept of a "Hard Disk" as mentioned in the thread title. Since the OP specifically mentioned flash memory was replacing hard disks, I think it is a safe assumption that he is wondering if the spinning disk magnetic storage media was in danger of being obsolete.

IMHO, yes they are for desktop and laptop use.

Don
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So what would you call an solid state disk? Not a hard drive? A hard drive is a function or concept.

I guess my mind is a little more open to the concept of a hard-drive rather than just assuming it's a metallic spinning platter... then again, I've used technologies considered hard-drives way before ssd's were found on mainstream.
 
I'm with Ockie here. Hard drive is a functional nomenclature these days. It isn't confined to the type of media, but rather it's purpose. I don't give a crap if there are miniature hamsters taking notes inside my data storage device, the damn thing's still a hard drive.

On topic, spinning magnetic media is here for a while. The readership of [H]ard|Forum does not represent the majority of computer users. We always adopt new technology before the masses do.
 
Empty_Quarter said:
I dont know, i'd give it a few years till one can say HDDs are obsolete. With HDDs increasing in capacity very quickly, they make for good storage drives.

A decade sounds about right.
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Their capacity vs cost are improving at an expectational rate. However, their latency and transfer speed are far too slow.

I suppose one could say HDDs are excellent for archiving, but SSD are more suitable for performance
 
I suspect that HDD's (in the traditional mechanical sense) will be around for at least another decade in some form or another.

As someone else pointed out, SSD's aren't a proven technology yet... who knows how they'll perform as they age
 
Nielo TM said:
Their capacity vs cost are improving at an expectational rate. However, their latency and transfer speed are far too slow.

I suppose one could say HDDs are excellent for archiving, but SSD are more suitable for performance
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I agree, HDDs for mass storage, SSDs for performance (or in a couple of years), mainstream purposes.

I hardly doubt SSDs can match HDDs in cost per GB. Even in a decades time.
 
"Will Hard Disks become Obsolete in Near future"?

Not until SSDs become a hell of a lot cheaper per GB and more durable for long-term usage especially for storage of important data.
 
That will likely be based on price. As computers improve, programs have become increasingly larger. Videos & Photos have increased substantially in size as the technology has improved the quality of the output.

SSDs will eventually take over consumer desktops and laptops when they are more cost effective at a reasonable size. And that reasonable size will be dictated by how large those common everyday files become.

But I don't see hard drives being phased out completely because I don't really see SSDs becoming main stream storage drives anytime soon. But I wouldn't bet against SSD prices coming down as technology improves. Look at how much advancement the industry has made in the last decade, the growth is exponential. But as SSDs become cheaper so will hard drives.
 
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I see it happening but like it has been mentioned not until prices come down and storage goes up. Currently, most configurations of modern day Laptops have the option of an SDD as the sole drive, of course with a hefty price tag, but it's there. It's certainly on its way.
 
Ockie said:
Define "hard-disks" first. SSD's and RAM drives can be considered hard drives. It's more of a concept or technology rather than a label.
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I'd say you are incorrect. Hard disk drives are just that, drives that use hard disks represented by platters. Floppy disk drives are the same concept but different because they use thin, magnetic sheets of disk which are floppy.

Solid state drives are completely different. They don't have disks at all and instead use flash memory that isn't a disk.

 
HDDs may become obsolete due to their relative slow speeds, but it functions perfectly fine as a mass storage device

i don't know whether SSDs can ever replace HDDs on the storage front... they'll have to surpass the data density and price/gb for that to happen
 
SmokeRngs said:
I'd say you are incorrect.
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I would disagree. A media that is distinct from its storage medium confined in a sealed environment is classified as a hard drive. Whether or not you decide to declare it a magnetic device or not, then that is up to you, but a hard drive can also include tape mediums as well and can include solid state also.

You are too narrow minded on your view of what a "hard drive" is or perhaps too accustomed. Just like how Kleenex is referred to as any micro cell tissue based paper.

But whatever, I'm not gonna argue it, I just think it's a false concept to think hard drives will become obsolete when it's really the device type. A better title would have been "Will magnetic or mechanical disks become obsolete in the near future?" well, absolutely!
 
Ockie said:
I would disagree. A media that is distinct from its storage medium confined in a sealed environment is classified as a hard drive. Whether or not you decide to declare it a magnetic device or not, then that is up to you, but a hard drive can also include tape mediums as well and can include solid state also.

You are too narrow minded on your view of what a "hard drive" is or perhaps too accustomed. Just like how Kleenex is referred to as any micro cell tissue based paper.

But whatever, I'm not gonna argue it, I just think it's a false concept to think hard drives will become obsolete when it's really the device type. A better title would have been "Will magnetic or mechanical disks become obsolete in the near future?" well, absolutely!
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The thread title is, " Will Hard DISKS become Obsolete in Near future." He did not say Drive, he asked about DISKS. Hard disks as the os drive are definitely limited.

While they serve the same function, SSDs and hard disks are 2 entirely different classes of drives. Once you use a SSD for an OS drive, it is difficult to go back to a hard disk.

We can argue semantics all night, but in my mind a hard drive and a Solid State drive are 2 entirely different beasties that serve the same purpose.

Don
 
The biggest drawback I've read about Solid State Drives is its life expetency, Limited write (erase) cycles: Flash-memory cells will often wear out after 1,000 to 10,000 write cycles for MLC, and up to 100,000 write cycles for SLC.

I don't know how much time it will take for this limitation to overcome, and once there is a solution to this, it should'nt take much time for Solid State Drives to come into mainstream.
 
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maverick786us said:
The biggest drawback I've read about Solid State Drives is its life expetency, Limited write (erase) cycles: Flash-memory cells will often wear out after 1,000 to 10,000 write cycles for MLC, and up to 100,000 write cycles for SLC.

I don't know how much time it will take for this limitation to overcome, and once there is a to this, it should'nt take much time for Solid State Drives to come into mainstream.
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Oh good lord, not again.

Should I bother to go through this crap yet again???? Sure, why not, but I am so annoyed at people who bring up a point in a thread without doing ANY research into what they just said.

In normal usage, a MLC based SSD will be long obsolete before they hit the 10K write issue. In that time, a comparable hard drive will have had to be replaced due to physical wear issues with motors and bearings.

OH, BTW, during that time, the SSD is an order of magnitude faster than the magnetic drive.

Do you people who hate SSDs also have a vinyl LP collection that you listen to regularly?

Don
 
maverick786us said:
The biggest drawback I've read about Solid State Drives is its life expetency, Limited write (erase) cycles: Flash-memory cells will often wear out after 1,000 to 10,000 write cycles for MLC, and up to 100,000 write cycles for SLC.

I don't know how much time it will take for this limitation to overcome, and once there is a to this, it should'nt take much time for Solid State Drives to come into mainstream.
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10 years at 50GB/day for an Intel 80GB SSD. Or run a 5 full-drive sequential write tests per day for 5 years. Both are hard to consistently do.

Mainstream pricing is a concern though. Flagship hard drives for the last 10 years have been pretty steady around the $250 price mark. The same can't be said for SSDs ($800 for a 64GB Intel, $1400 for a 120GB Vertex EX).
 
DonDon said:
Oh good lord, not again.

Should I bother to go through this crap yet again???? Sure, why not, but I am so annoyed at people who bring up a point in a thread without doing ANY research into what they just said.

In normal usage, a MLC based SSD will be long obsolete before they hit the 10K write issue. In that time, a comparable hard drive will have had to be replaced due to physical wear issues with motors and bearings.

OH, BTW, during that time, the SSD is an order of magnitude faster than the magnetic drive.

Do you people who hate SSDs also have a vinyl LP collection that you listen to regularly?

Don
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I'll say up front that I haven't done research on this yet. However, there is one flaw in the testing; especially in the case of when an SSD is used as an OS drive. It's not very often that many of the files of the OS and installed programs are overwritten. That will leave a part of the drive which will rarely be written to. That's not a problem. However, the rest of the drive is likely to be written, erased and written again a lot more often wearing out that part of the drive. I know all about "leveling" with these drives and that's one of the main reasons they will last longer.

That said, it would not surprise me that even in that scenario the drive would likely outlast the first system it's installed in. In my case, that drive would likely be moved from my main system after I got a new drive to replace it and moved to another system to longer use. There is still the chance that at least part of the drive will wear out quicker than you might think.

I don't want to hear any bitching out of this. If you have proof that my scenario isn't likely to happen, then please post it. Also, I have nothing against SSDs. If I could afford a good one I would probably buy one to at least try one out.
 
Personally, I think hard drives can't die fast enough. They've been a hugely limiting factor in computing for years. Capacities may have increased, but performance gains didn't keep pace with their counterparts.

astrallite said:
Mainstream pricing is a concern though. Flagship hard drives for the last 10 years have been pretty steady around the $250 price mark. The same can't be said for SSDs ($800 for a 64GB Intel, $1400 for a 120GB Vertex EX).
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Thankfully prices for SSDs are dropping dramatically as more competition enters the market and more demand for the drives arises. SSDs are already big on the enterprise market. Also, SSDs are based on cheap to manufacture components and they are actually less expensive to produce than hard drives. Once they ramp up production and move more mainstream, we should see significantly lower prices.

Sure, when the Intel 80GB first came to market at $800 it was high, but that same product is less than half the price now in a matter of months. The OCZ Vertex EX is their server drive which is significantly more expensive than it's consumer counterpart (which was ~$400 at launch). Keep in mind though, when hard drives first came to market, they were also terribly expensive (100MB hard drives for $15,000 in 1983!). Times have changed though, the market will no longer bear such things.

Besides, we've all made expensive, bleeding edge purchases only to replace them with superior mainstream ones later I'm sure.

I remain optimistic.
 
I remember paying upwards of 100 bucks for my 40 GB IBM deskstar in 2000/2001. If SSD's at current price and performance levels were released back then, there would be no question as to which was the better value. The only reason there's a debate now is because hard disk manufacturers have managed to make huge drives ridiculously cheap, I seriously wonder if they're actually making money off of them.
 
DonDon said:
The thread title is, " Will Hard DISKS become Obsolete in Near future." He did not say Drive, he asked about DISKS. Hard disks as the os drive are definitely limited.

While they serve the same function, SSDs and hard disks are 2 entirely different classes of drives. Once you use a SSD for an OS drive, it is difficult to go back to a hard disk.

We can argue semantics all night, but in my mind a hard drive and a Solid State drive are 2 entirely different beasties that serve the same purpose.

Don
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Considering that he misspelled obsolete, I inquired about the fact what he meant by "disk". Keep in mind, not everyone is going to refer to a hard drive or hard disk (for the PC people) to rotating spinning mechanical magnetic platters. To a lot of consumers its the same thing and to a lot of technically inclined people it can mean the same thing due to its true definition which I stated before :rolleyes: I simply asked what the user meant by his disk comment as he did not clarify, so you guys just assumed and attacked me... therefore, I'll return hostile fire.

I'm not gonna let this one go, so you guys might just as well give up.
 
Ockie said:
Considering that he misspelled obsolete, I inquired about the fact what he meant by "disk". Keep in mind, not everyone is going to refer to a hard drive or hard disk (for the PC people) to rotating spinning mechanical magnetic platters. To a lot of consumers its the same thing and to a lot of technically inclined people it can mean the same thing due to its true definition which I stated before :rolleyes: I simply asked what the user meant by his disk comment as he did not clarify, so you guys just assumed and attacked me... therefore, I'll return hostile fire.

I'm not gonna let this one go, so you guys might just as well give up.
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But did you read the first post?

With the introduction of Flash Memory in SONY VIAO in which OS in instantly loaded from the memory, will it make Hard Disks obsolute by replacing it with Flash Memory?
Click to expand...

But what could he have possibly meant by "Flash Memory" besides a SSD? What new technology is there that would make SSDs obsolete in the near future?

I love SSD's and I have a vinyl collection that I listen to regularly, thank you very much.
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Touche! But you have to admit that you are a rare breed. ;)

Don
 
DonDon said:
But what could he have possibly meant by "Flash Memory" besides a SSD? What new technology is there that would make SSDs obsolete in the near future?
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There are a lot of new technologies to replace SSD (the ssd that you guys assume and I am assuming (here we go assuming again) that its the little drives you get on newegg), and there will be technologies to replace those technologies in its near future. But as my question still stands, what type of drive was he referring to to become obsolete and compared to what new technology. It's broad to assume all disk drives will be replaced with flash memory, especially when you are referring to basically every storage medium out there compared to anything with a flash based storage medium.

Realistically, the question in itself is rhetorical as everything becomes obsolete in computers in the near future.

Fuk me for trying to give a better answer than a blanket response. Next time someone asks if computers will become obsolete, I'll just answer yes with the rest of the sheep.
 
maverick786us said:
I've done enough research before putting this point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_state_drives

I don't have any hatered for SSDs, infact I would love to see SSDs in action but this limitation is a concern for me.
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Yes, that is a limitation of flash technology. Yes, you can make some adjustments to how Windows operates to limit writes to the drive to maximise the drives life.

But, in normal use, the 10K write issue will not show up during the useful life of the drive, say 5 years.

From the Intel product brief.

Minimum Useful Life
A typical client usage of 20 GB writes per day is assumed. Should the host system
attempt to exceed 20 GB writes per day by a large margin for an extended period, the
drive will enable the endurance management feature to adjust write performance. By
efficiently managing performance, this feature enables the device to have, at a
minimum, a five year useful life. Under normal operation conditions, the drive will not
invoke this feature.
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I have a feeling Intel is being extremely conservative on their estimates cause that is only a quarter of the 80 gig drives capacity. They specifically state that is the MINIMUM expected life.

Hard drives have a failure rate of 8% per year average over 5 years per Google. Link

So, during that same 5 years, 40% of hard drives are going to fail.

Hmm, I don't understand where this concern about the write life is coming from, other than the drives are still expensive and it is an excuse people are using to justify not buying them right now. Trust me, once you use one, you will never be happy using a hard drive again.

Don
 
Ockie said:
I'm not gonna let this one go, so you guys might just as well give up.
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Just because you're not going to "give up" doesn't mean you're right. By your reasoning, a hard drive, optical drive, video card, RAM, motherboard, sound card, expansion ports and every other peripheral you can cram inside the case of the computer is a "CPU" because a large number of people call the computer as a whole the CPU.

An SSD is not the same as an HDD and the original post refers to HDDs. It's as simple as that.
 
At this point the $/GB metric for SSDs is still much higher than that for an HDD. Yes, SSDs are faster, but in terms of sheer storage capacity, nothing can beat HDDs yet. Heck, for the price of one 160 GB SSD you can buy a pile of 2 TB HDDs, at that point I wouldn't care one bit about how much faster the SSD might be. It'd still be cheaper to buy more RAM and set up a RAM drive of a few GB.

I don't see the price of SSDs drop much in the near future either. At the current rate I doubt SSDs will come even close to catching up with HDDs price-wise for the next 5-10 years.

Do your needs include durability in harsh environments? Are you clumsy and often drop your laptop/netbook? Are the lower access times and faster small file transfer speeds more important than much faster sequential writing and reading speeds? In that case an SSD isn't such a bad choice.

Is your primary need storage? Then just use an HDD.
 
Have you been keeping track of SSD prices for the last 2 years? Something like an OCZ vertex 30 gig would have been 3 or 4 grand back then, increases in capacity are as simple as adding a few more chips and normal process improvement. Or do you think that manufacturing has hit a wall in regards to minimum profitable price right now?
 
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