Storage (In The Next 5 Years)

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
Derek Semeraro
Posts: 124
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 6:49 am

Storage (In The Next 5 Years)

Post by Derek Semeraro » Sun Sep 24, 2017 3:58 pm

Cloud-based storage is inherently the most silent and minimalistic storage. In the case of tablets and phones, this will be the future. Micro SD cards (used for relatively smaller file sizes) are fallible, fixed in size and an inconvenience to move around. Services like Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive will develop into better alternatives in this regard, as software becomes better designed. However, desktop PC's inite in size, However, for desktop PC's, I'm not convinced. Some of the most common uses for custom PC builds are recording studios, film/photo editing, computer games and servers: All of those purposes rely on large file sizes which are immediately accessible. There's also doubts on security and an aversion to the fact that paying for large cloud capacity on a regular basis versus paying once and owning it forever.

Solid state drives are the best choice for silent builds (and all builds that want significantly faster booting and loading times in general). However, they are expensive. Samsung announced a plan to significantly reduce the cost of SSD's by 2020 (to 2016 HDD levels). We could see some of this progress in 2018 and 2019. As a result, it is best to buy as much storage as you need (and don't try to future proof). Soon enough 1TB SSD's will be affordable enough for the masses.

One contentious prediction I will make is that Hard Drives will not become obsolete within the next 10 years at all, assuming that their price keeps dropping and the builder is okay with a 25-30db PC instead of a 20db PC. The possibility of a $20 2TB hard drive within the next few years is just too alluring. For higher budgets, many builders will add an HDD or two just because they can (and want to get the most out of their system). For lower end builds, price is king and even as SSD prices go down, if even $20-50 could be saved by going for an HDD alongside the lowest capacity SSD (instead of a high-end capacity), builders will go that route. In mid-range, people may consider having to use a larger SSD size as an opportunity cost against having a higher-end processor.

CA_Steve
Moderator
Posts: 7650
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 4:36 am
Location: St. Louis, MO

Re: Storage (In The Next 5 Years)

Post by CA_Steve » Sun Sep 24, 2017 5:11 pm

Consider that HDDs for long term storage don't always have to be spinning. My archive HDD just spins up at boot/wake for a few minutes and when accessed. Otherwise it's not spinning/not adding to the noise environment at all.

Abula
Posts: 3662
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:22 pm
Location: Guatemala

Re: Storage (In The Next 5 Years)

Post by Abula » Sun Sep 24, 2017 9:30 pm

I expect HDD to be relevant at least 5 years, probably more, SSDs are going down in price but not as fast, i do expect at some point to have 3.5 ssds with a lot higher capacity with slower and cheaper nad, but still nad today is very expensive, a 4tb ssd like 850evo costs $1500, if it existed an 8tb version would be above $3k, considering that you can get a 8tb WD Red inside a MyBook for $200, its still a very big difference, expecting SSDs half price every 1.5 years... it will take at least 6 years to reach $187, but by that time we will probably have 20tb+ HDD, but the ssds will be catching up, so around 9 years is where i expect we will start to see SSDs hit mainstream on storage, probably before as not everybody will need that amount for storage.

Derek Semeraro
Posts: 124
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 6:49 am

Re: Storage (In The Next 5 Years)

Post by Derek Semeraro » Sun Sep 24, 2017 9:48 pm

CA_Steve wrote:Consider that HDDs for long term storage don't always have to be spinning. My archive HDD just spins up at boot/wake for a few minutes and when accessed. Otherwise it's not spinning/not adding to the noise environment at all.
This is a good point, although, it depends on the use. Will it spin while media files are actively used? Even so, the only time a 100% silent computer is needed is during recording (and other specialized uses). Apart from that, a small amount of noise while media content with sound is active won't be a problem.

Derek Semeraro
Posts: 124
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 6:49 am

Re: Storage (In The Next 5 Years)

Post by Derek Semeraro » Sun Sep 24, 2017 10:00 pm

Abula wrote:a 4tb ssd like 850evo costs $1500 ... expecting SSDs half price every 1.5 years... it will take at least 6 years to reach $187, but by that time we will probably have 20tb+ HDD
These are very large numbers. It's kind of hard for me to conceive files needing that much space, but 20 years ago, people probably wouldn't have thought a program could have required more than 1GB of space. Perhaps developers do design their programs in mind of how much storage most people have. Though, by the time I will need a 4TB SSD, it will be affordable.

In two years from now, I'd love to buy 2TB SSD's and never use a hard drive again. Although, many people will continue to use hard drives for their gigantic storage capacity and low price.
but the ssds will be catching up, so around 9 years is where i expect we will start to see SSDs hit mainstream on storage, probably before as not everybody will need that amount for storage.
9 years is a reasonable estimate of when SSD's will be more prevalent than HDD's. But they will be mainstream even sooner. Apple computers use them already due to their philosophy of smaller form factor and no moving parts. Most laptops/desktops will enjoy the benefits of SSD when it gets to a low enough price point for manufacturers to include them in without significantly reducing the profitability of the product.

Abula
Posts: 3662
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:22 pm
Location: Guatemala

Re: Storage (In The Next 5 Years)

Post by Abula » Sun Sep 24, 2017 10:15 pm

Derek Semeraro wrote:These are very large numbers. It's kind of hard for me to conceive files needing that much space, but 20 years ago
Things change over time, memory needs increases, gpus memories also increases, specially with 4k starting to enter mainstream it will require a lot more space not only on memory, but even for storing movies, an average remux right now is around 25gb, a 4k x265 is already going into 60gb, not considering the super extended versions studios release on certain movies. I welcome more space, specially if its silent, but then again im not the average user, i do think we have reach a point where there are not as big of a need in many aspects, like CPUs do a lot more than people use them on their daily browsing and office work, storage is also sufficient for the average user even on ssds, TV/Monitors that have resolutions that barely benefit from our viewing positions... and so on, I feel we are on an age where tech has catch up to the needs of most, and now we are just consuming for consuming....

J. Sparrow
Posts: 414
Joined: Wed Jan 17, 2007 7:55 am
Location: EU

Re: Storage (In The Next 5 Years)

Post by J. Sparrow » Tue Jan 30, 2018 6:03 am

Abula wrote:but even for storing movies, an average remux right now is around 25gb, a 4k x265 is already going into 60gb, not considering the super extended versions studios release on certain movies.
That much is true, however it also seems media consumption is moving increasingly towards subscription/streaming models, making local storage a cache rather than long-term, therefore shifting priority towards bandwidth instead.

The only exception I can think of, being games.

Abula
Posts: 3662
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:22 pm
Location: Guatemala

Re: Storage (In The Next 5 Years)

Post by Abula » Tue Jan 30, 2018 11:12 am

J. Sparrow wrote:That much is true, however it also seems media consumption is moving increasingly towards subscription/streaming models, making local storage a cache rather than long-term, therefore shifting priority towards bandwidth instead.
I agree for the average user, but having enough bandwidth to stream a 4k movie its going to be extremely expensive, unless you are fine with the rip down quality on youtube/netflix, but to me if you are going into 4k for better image quality is not appropriate to go with a low bitrate stream, that said, for the vast majority of users, the ones that dont care it will be fine.

Olle P
Posts: 711
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2008 6:03 am
Location: Sweden

Re: Storage (In The Next 5 Years)

Post by Olle P » Thu Feb 01, 2018 7:43 am

I think you miss out on self-made media files.
A friend of mine that is a hobby photographer has about 11TB of still pictures (in RAW format) in his computer.
Anybody shooting a lot of films will also need a good capacity of data.

That said this data can of course be stored in a NAS or other "off" location where noise is less of a problem.

For my own needs I think 1TB is the bare minimum right now, with half of it dedicated for games...

flyingsherpa
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 475
Joined: Fri Sep 26, 2003 6:28 pm
Location: CT, USA

Re: Storage (In The Next 5 Years)

Post by flyingsherpa » Fri Feb 02, 2018 9:44 am

Personally, I'm most interested in the new HD tech coming soon, microwave (MAMR). They're saying like 40TB drives in a few years. I don't need that much, but my 3TB is getting full after a few years, so I wouldn't mind an affordable 20TB or whatever (still needs to be quiet, of course). Current SSD drives are already good enough for me, since I always use the SSD boot + HDD storage model and don't need cutting-edge SSD performance for what I do.

Derek Semeraro
Posts: 124
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 6:49 am

Re: Storage (In The Next 5 Years)

Post by Derek Semeraro » Tue Apr 24, 2018 4:40 pm

Considering how that companies like Facebook and Instagram probably need millions of high-capacity hard drives to store an increasing amount of information, I'd be surprised if 10-20 TB hard drive aren't coming on the way en masse.

Olle P
Posts: 711
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2008 6:03 am
Location: Sweden

Re: Storage (In The Next 5 Years)

Post by Olle P » Wed Apr 25, 2018 12:55 am

And the expectation some 5+ years ago was that by now SSDs would be as cheap as HDDs for the same storage capacity.
We're far from it! The pricing per TB is roughly 5:1 SSD to HDD at the budget end.

whispercat
Posts: 376
Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2008 6:05 pm
Location: Calgary, AB, Canada

Re: Storage (In The Next 5 Years)

Post by whispercat » Wed May 16, 2018 1:01 pm

I bought the first mainstream Intel SSD (Intel X25-M 168 GB) back in 2009 for ~$500. (CDN). I'm still using it to run my OS.
This was considered the top of the line state of the art SSD at the time, because it had just received TRIM support. I think Intel had a 250GB capacity as well, but it was about $950. My Intel SSD worked out to be around $3.00 per GB.

Now you can buy a top of the line state of the art Samsung 860 Pro 256 GB SSD for $170. (CDN), which works out to be about $.66 cents per GB. or a 512GB capacity @ $300. for $.58 cents per GB. There are of course even cheaper SSDs by other companies.

So, in ten years, the price per GB on a SSD has come down by $2.34. or nearly 80%.

Sure, we all expected the price drop to be a little faster, but I think the drop has still been impressive. It is still no where near price parity with HDDs but I estimate in another ten years it will be. I think in five years that top line Samsung 512GB Pro (870?) will be around $200. (CDN) or less. $.39 cents per GB. High quality HDDs (e.g. WD or Seagate) are currently about $.10 cents per GB. So SSDs are closing fast.

For SATA SSDs, the NAND flash, controllers, speed, and endurance, are always improving, at the same time prices are falling. My Intel X25-M can't compare to today's SSDs. I also find it interesting that Samsung emerged as the high end SSD company, although Intel, who fell behind for a while, is now catching up again.

Olle P
Posts: 711
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2008 6:03 am
Location: Sweden

Re: Storage (In The Next 5 Years)

Post by Olle P » Fri May 18, 2018 6:04 am

whispercat wrote:So, in ten years, the price per GB on a SSD has come down by $2.34. or nearly 80%.
And in the same time the required storage space has also roughly five-folded, resulting in the cost for a useful amount of storage to stay approximately the same.

Hrafn
Posts: 76
Joined: Sat Oct 12, 2013 9:09 am

Re: Storage (In The Next 5 Years)

Post by Hrafn » Fri May 18, 2018 7:04 am

Olle P wrote:
whispercat wrote:So, in ten years, the price per GB on a SSD has come down by $2.34. or nearly 80%.
And in the same time the required storage space has also roughly five-folded, resulting in the cost for a useful amount of storage to stay approximately the same.
Additionally, the c/GB cost of HDDs has also fallen considerably over this period -- making it unclear whether SSDs are slowly catching up, merely maintaining the cost differential, or slowly falling behind.

whispercat
Posts: 376
Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2008 6:05 pm
Location: Calgary, AB, Canada

Re: Storage (In The Next 5 Years)

Post by whispercat » Fri May 18, 2018 12:27 pm

Olle P wrote:
whispercat wrote:So, in ten years, the price per GB on a SSD has come down by $2.34. or nearly 80%.
And in the same time the required storage space has also roughly five-folded, resulting in the cost for a useful amount of storage to stay approximately the same.
Required storage space for what?

Vicotnik
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1831
Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2003 6:53 am
Location: Sweden

Re: Storage (In The Next 5 Years)

Post by Vicotnik » Fri May 18, 2018 2:56 pm

whispercat wrote:Required storage space for what?
You don't want to know. Trust me.

Olle P
Posts: 711
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2008 6:03 am
Location: Sweden

Re: Storage (In The Next 5 Years)

Post by Olle P » Tue May 22, 2018 5:58 am

whispercat wrote:Required storage space for what?
Most software. Games and such. Nowadays a game can require 150 GB install space while 30 GB was plenty ten years ago.
Also if you do any photography or filming the resolution and thereby filesize has grown considerably.

Post Reply