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Decline price per GB for HDDs comes to an end
Simply put, they're not getting any cheaper. In its latest report Backblaze has been monitoring the average price per Gigabyte of hard disk drives, Backblaze bases theor numbers on the 75,000 HDDs it purchased the last couple of years.
When you focus at the years 2009 up-to 2011 the cost per GB dropped with 45%, from $0.11 to $0.05 per GB.
Inbetween 2015 up-to 2017 the average costs dropped 26% from $0.04 to $0.03 per GB, a drop of a mere $0.01 per GB. “This means that the declining price of storage will become less relevant in driving the cost of providing storage,” Andy Klein of BackBlaze writes on the company’s website.
He also mentions something about a prediction of research company IDC that states that from 2020, 44 trillion GB of data will be generated annually. “That’s quite a challenge for the storage industry especially as the cost per gigabyte curve for hard drives is flattening out,” Klein writes. Possibly new improvements in HDD technology, such as Helium and Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR), and future technologies such as quantum storage, are a solution.
p through the 4 TB drive models, the cost per gigabyte of a larger sized drive always became less than the smaller sized drives. In other words, the cost per gigabyte of a 2 TB drive was less than that of a 1 TB drive resulting in higher density at a lower cost per gigabyte. This changed with the introduction of 6- and 8 TB drives, especially as it relates to the 4 TB drives. As you can see in the chart above, the cost per gigabyte of the 6 TB drives did not fall below that of the 4 TB drives. You can also observe that the 8 TB drives are just approaching the cost per gigabyte of the 4 TB drives. The 4 TB drives are the price king as seen in the chart below of the current cost of Seagate consumer drives by size.
Seagate Hard Drive Prices By Size
| Drive Size | Model | Price | Cost/GB |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 TB | ST1000DM010 | $49.99 | $0.050 |
| 2 TB | ST2000DM006 | $66.99 | $0.033 |
| 3 TB | ST3000DM008 | $83.72 | $0.028 |
| 4 TB | ST4000DM005 | $99.99 | $0.025 |
| 6 TB | ST6000DM004 | $240.00 | $0.040 |
| 8 TB | ST8000DM005 | $307.34 | $0.038 |
The data on this chart was sourced from the current price of these drives on Amazon.
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fry178
Senior Member
Posts: 1932
Joined: 2012-04-30
Senior Member
Posts: 1932
Joined: 2012-04-30
#5452066 Posted on: 07/13/2017 08:55 AM
would like to see how much of that is actually caused making/selling drives, and the lower production of hdds after suppliers/plants got "hit" (tsunami/earthquakes etc).
would like to see how much of that is actually caused making/selling drives, and the lower production of hdds after suppliers/plants got "hit" (tsunami/earthquakes etc).
intellimoo
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Posts: 336
Joined: 2004-08-29
Senior Member
Posts: 336
Joined: 2004-08-29
#5452071 Posted on: 07/13/2017 09:24 AM
Still have a looooong way to go on that front.
Maybe the halting of cheaper large capacity mechanical drives will drive the adoption of ssds.
Still have a looooong way to go on that front.
MisterGutsy
Junior Member
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Joined: 2017-05-20
Junior Member
Posts: 7
Joined: 2017-05-20
#5452078 Posted on: 07/13/2017 09:52 AM
Its logical, you only ever need 1 or 2 (AT MOST) ssds to install your OS and/or games while you can have as many mechanical drives as you want for storage.
My PC have 7 mechanical drives (26Tb) and 1 ssd (samsung 850 evo 1tb). So unless ssd's come to the same price level of hdd and become LARGE enough that archiving data on it is feasible the price of hdds isn't going to go down much more (which i don't see happening in the next 15 or so years atleast).
Its logical, you only ever need 1 or 2 (AT MOST) ssds to install your OS and/or games while you can have as many mechanical drives as you want for storage.
My PC have 7 mechanical drives (26Tb) and 1 ssd (samsung 850 evo 1tb). So unless ssd's come to the same price level of hdd and become LARGE enough that archiving data on it is feasible the price of hdds isn't going to go down much more (which i don't see happening in the next 15 or so years atleast).
nevcairiel
Senior Member
Posts: 845
Joined: 2015-05-19
Senior Member
Posts: 845
Joined: 2015-05-19
#5452085 Posted on: 07/13/2017 10:10 AM
The 4TB 850 Evo is still around, but its quite expensive. More then double the price of the 2TB model for reasons.
One of the factors of SSD prices is the shortage of NAND chips right now. New factories are being build, but this takes time. Presumably in 2018 it should go back down a bit. In the meantime higher-density V-NAND is also being developed, which should help with bigger drives.
My main PC doesn't have any mechanical drives left at this point, however my storage server still has a dozen or so drives for media storage. But replacing those is very unlikely, as it doesn't need the performance anyway.
Samsung released a 4tb 750 evo or something about 18 months ago but it seems to be gone from the market now.
The 4TB 850 Evo is still around, but its quite expensive. More then double the price of the 2TB model for reasons.
One of the factors of SSD prices is the shortage of NAND chips right now. New factories are being build, but this takes time. Presumably in 2018 it should go back down a bit. In the meantime higher-density V-NAND is also being developed, which should help with bigger drives.
My main PC doesn't have any mechanical drives left at this point, however my storage server still has a dozen or so drives for media storage. But replacing those is very unlikely, as it doesn't need the performance anyway.
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Maybe the halting of cheaper large capacity mechanical drives will drive the adoption of ssds. It would be nice to start moving that way. Samsung released a 4tb 750 evo or something about 18 months ago but it seems to be gone from the market now.