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Global HDD sales drop another 12% to 77 million devices for Q1 2019
You probably have noticed that SSDs came, saw and conquered the storage markets the past few years. And that certainly has an effect on HDD sales. In the years to come I predict there will be a tipping point where productions ramps down and HDDs will become more expensive than SSDs.
The first signs of the dropping HDD market is here if we look at the first quarterly figures of 2019from a Trendfocus article it shows that the sales numbers of 3.5 and 2.5-inch consumer HDDs have dropped significantly. Interestingly enough sales of business HDDs, on the other hand, have risen.
In the first quarter of 2019, 24.5 million disks were shipped out which is roughly four million less than the last quarter of 2018. The number of 2.5-inch devices (often used in laptops) has dropped by 6 million units to 37 million.
| Vendor | HDDs in million |
Q/Q growth | Y/Y growth | Market share |
| Seagate | 31.40 – 31.80 | -14.5% / -13.4% | -14.4% / -13.4% | 41.0% – 40.9% |
| Toshiba | 18.30 – 18.70 | -13.3% / -11.4% | -11.3% / -9.3% | 23.9% – 24.0% |
| WDC | 26.90 – 27.30 | -10.8% / -9.5% | -26.1% / -25.0% | 35.1% – 35.1% |
| TOTAL | 76.60 – 77.80 | -12.9% / -11.6% | -18.3% / -17.0% | 100% – 100% |
sverek
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#5661548 Posted on: 04/19/2019 12:38 PM
But.. but... my magnetic tape
For actual long time storage and backups i will still use HDDs, and that's not going to change.
But.. but... my magnetic tape
CPC_RedDawn
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#5661550 Posted on: 04/19/2019 12:51 PM
I expect this trend to continue for the next 5-10 years. Unless they come up with some new technology that improves performance. I can see hybrid drives becoming more popular as a stepping stone for people who want SSD-like performance but still want a lot of storage.
SSD's will see the same decline soon as NVME becomes the new standard.
I expect this trend to continue for the next 5-10 years. Unless they come up with some new technology that improves performance. I can see hybrid drives becoming more popular as a stepping stone for people who want SSD-like performance but still want a lot of storage.
SSD's will see the same decline soon as NVME becomes the new standard.
NAMEk
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#5661552 Posted on: 04/19/2019 01:12 PM
But but, I just bought three hard-drives and it still declines? :O
joking
But but, I just bought three hard-drives and it still declines? :O
joking
sverek
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#5661559 Posted on: 04/19/2019 01:48 PM
I expect this trend to continue for the next 5-10 years. Unless they come up with some new technology that improves performance. I can see hybrid drives becoming more popular as a stepping stone for people who want SSD-like performance but still want a lot of storage.
SSD's will see the same decline soon as NVME becomes the new standard.
Hybrid is in rather bad spot. You don’t need storage for movies and music. Most games and software can be fit in 500GB SSD.
It always wiser to separate drives between usage. Unless there very specific use cases.
I expect this trend to continue for the next 5-10 years. Unless they come up with some new technology that improves performance. I can see hybrid drives becoming more popular as a stepping stone for people who want SSD-like performance but still want a lot of storage.
SSD's will see the same decline soon as NVME becomes the new standard.
Hybrid is in rather bad spot. You don’t need storage for movies and music. Most games and software can be fit in 500GB SSD.
It always wiser to separate drives between usage. Unless there very specific use cases.
schmidtbag
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#5661573 Posted on: 04/19/2019 03:09 PM
I expect this trend to continue for the next 5-10 years. Unless they come up with some new technology that improves performance. I can see hybrid drives becoming more popular as a stepping stone for people who want SSD-like performance but still want a lot of storage.
SSD's will see the same decline soon as NVME becomes the new standard.
HDDs are steadily on their way out, not specifically because of performance, but because of value. The only reason they're retaining any interest is because they still offer a very compelling price:capacity ratio that pretty much nothing else can compete with. As soon as 1TB SSDs beat 1TB HDDs in price, I imagine that will officially be the end of consumer-grade HDDs; enterprise HDDs will still be made for a long while.
I expect this trend to continue for the next 5-10 years. Unless they come up with some new technology that improves performance. I can see hybrid drives becoming more popular as a stepping stone for people who want SSD-like performance but still want a lot of storage.
SSD's will see the same decline soon as NVME becomes the new standard.
HDDs are steadily on their way out, not specifically because of performance, but because of value. The only reason they're retaining any interest is because they still offer a very compelling price:capacity ratio that pretty much nothing else can compete with. As soon as 1TB SSDs beat 1TB HDDs in price, I imagine that will officially be the end of consumer-grade HDDs; enterprise HDDs will still be made for a long while.
Mesab67
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#5661584 Posted on: 04/19/2019 04:15 PM
Somewhere down the line (maybe not so far away) when ISP speeds + package prices eventually improve for the masses, including improved streaming (video/gaming/apps/etc) + online storage options, I can see things changing dramatically locally. There'll be a few eye-openers. I think a surprising number of folk don't realise the implications of their purchased digital content on providers such as Steam. If Steam were to go down permanently you've lost everything. Unless that risk were reduced to around zero, maybe things might turn around for local storage. Or, what about mitigating through parallel/multiple independent online storage options - a realistic idea for the future?
We've come far, it'll be interesting to see how things develop.
Somewhere down the line (maybe not so far away) when ISP speeds + package prices eventually improve for the masses, including improved streaming (video/gaming/apps/etc) + online storage options, I can see things changing dramatically locally. There'll be a few eye-openers. I think a surprising number of folk don't realise the implications of their purchased digital content on providers such as Steam. If Steam were to go down permanently you've lost everything. Unless that risk were reduced to around zero, maybe things might turn around for local storage. Or, what about mitigating through parallel/multiple independent online storage options - a realistic idea for the future?
We've come far, it'll be interesting to see how things develop.
alanm
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#5661592 Posted on: 04/19/2019 05:43 PM
As long as people have storage needs above 2-5Tb, HDDs will be around. I dont think SSDs can offer that sort of capacity + cost per Tb any time soon.
As long as people have storage needs above 2-5Tb, HDDs will be around. I dont think SSDs can offer that sort of capacity + cost per Tb any time soon.
CPC_RedDawn
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#5661606 Posted on: 04/19/2019 06:36 PM
Hybrid is in rather bad spot. You don’t need storage for movies and music. Most games and software can be fit in 500GB SSD.
It always wiser to separate drives between usage. Unless there very specific use cases.
I do this exact thing, I have 500GB nvme drive for my OS, a 2TB SDD for games, and a 1TB HDD for media (pictures, movies, music, etc) and backups.
Although, I would go and check out some of the tests done on the hybrid drives. The seagate firecuda drives are actually pretty damn good. Sure they only have an 8GB SSD cache system but it learns over time what files are more frequently used and caches them in that 8GB cache. Some tests on youtube show that the drive comes extremely close to SSD performance for load times. Granted you have to wait for the drive to learn what you open more often for it to really show what it can do. But once hybrid drives start coming out with 32GB or 64GB cache's things will start to kick off a lot for these devices. They can basically cache an entire game.
Currently a 1TB firecuda is around £65 on amazon. Much cheaper than a 1TB SSD at around £110 and an NVME drive at £150+
Sure these hybrid drives won't take off as much as HDD's or SSD's its more of a stop gap than an upgrade.
HDDs are steadily on their way out, not specifically because of performance, but because of value. The only reason they're retaining any interest is because they still offer a very compelling price:capacity ratio that pretty much nothing else can compete with. As soon as 1TB SSDs beat 1TB HDDs in price, I imagine that will officially be the end of consumer-grade HDDs; enterprise HDDs will still be made for a long while.
Just look at seagates HAMR drives
aslo
I mean some data centers still use a form of floppy disk... kinda
Hybrid is in rather bad spot. You don’t need storage for movies and music. Most games and software can be fit in 500GB SSD.
It always wiser to separate drives between usage. Unless there very specific use cases.
I do this exact thing, I have 500GB nvme drive for my OS, a 2TB SDD for games, and a 1TB HDD for media (pictures, movies, music, etc) and backups.
Although, I would go and check out some of the tests done on the hybrid drives. The seagate firecuda drives are actually pretty damn good. Sure they only have an 8GB SSD cache system but it learns over time what files are more frequently used and caches them in that 8GB cache. Some tests on youtube show that the drive comes extremely close to SSD performance for load times. Granted you have to wait for the drive to learn what you open more often for it to really show what it can do. But once hybrid drives start coming out with 32GB or 64GB cache's things will start to kick off a lot for these devices. They can basically cache an entire game.
Currently a 1TB firecuda is around £65 on amazon. Much cheaper than a 1TB SSD at around £110 and an NVME drive at £150+
Sure these hybrid drives won't take off as much as HDD's or SSD's its more of a stop gap than an upgrade.
HDDs are steadily on their way out, not specifically because of performance, but because of value. The only reason they're retaining any interest is because they still offer a very compelling price:capacity ratio that pretty much nothing else can compete with. As soon as 1TB SSDs beat 1TB HDDs in price, I imagine that will officially be the end of consumer-grade HDDs; enterprise HDDs will still be made for a long while.
Just look at seagates HAMR drives
aslo
I mean some data centers still use a form of floppy disk... kinda
EspHack
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#5661693 Posted on: 04/20/2019 08:11 AM
i notice 1tb ssd isnt far from reaching 1tb hdd prices at current rates, i wonder what happens when it becomes affordable to have several terabytes of ssd storage, hdd would have to quadruple in capacity at the same prices to stay relevant
i notice 1tb ssd isnt far from reaching 1tb hdd prices at current rates, i wonder what happens when it becomes affordable to have several terabytes of ssd storage, hdd would have to quadruple in capacity at the same prices to stay relevant
Irenicus
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#5661710 Posted on: 04/20/2019 09:51 AM
Hybrid is in rather bad spot. You don’t need storage for movies and music. Most games and software can be fit in 500GB SSD.
It always wiser to separate drives between usage. Unless there very specific use cases.
I guess most don't "need" storage for movies and music. Personally I do
Hybrid is in rather bad spot. You don’t need storage for movies and music. Most games and software can be fit in 500GB SSD.
It always wiser to separate drives between usage. Unless there very specific use cases.
I guess most don't "need" storage for movies and music. Personally I do
sverek
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#5661715 Posted on: 04/20/2019 10:29 AM
"Fast Storage"
I guess most don't "need" storage for movies and music. Personally I do
"Fast Storage"
Rx4speed
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#5661721 Posted on: 04/20/2019 11:35 AM
I've gone completely SSD's in my rig, M.2 SX8200 500gb boot etc. and an older 1TB Sandisk Extreme Pro MLC SSD (10yr warranty-this this is still a beast)). Silence is golden. Movies etc. I put on my 2tb wd black i put in an external enclosure. and I still use a 4TB external spinner for backups and more stuff.
Spinning hard drives aren't the best for long term important storage. Burned Mdisc Blu-Rays are much better long term storage.
In reality , I wish i had another TB or so of storage in my PC now, and may pick up a cheap 2TB SSD like the ADATA SU800 soon. But really. how many games do I need installed on my PC at once? I'm usually only 'into' less than a handful at a time.
I've gone completely SSD's in my rig, M.2 SX8200 500gb boot etc. and an older 1TB Sandisk Extreme Pro MLC SSD (10yr warranty-this this is still a beast)). Silence is golden. Movies etc. I put on my 2tb wd black i put in an external enclosure. and I still use a 4TB external spinner for backups and more stuff.
Spinning hard drives aren't the best for long term important storage. Burned Mdisc Blu-Rays are much better long term storage.
In reality , I wish i had another TB or so of storage in my PC now, and may pick up a cheap 2TB SSD like the ADATA SU800 soon. But really. how many games do I need installed on my PC at once? I'm usually only 'into' less than a handful at a time.
TheDeeGee
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#5661724 Posted on: 04/20/2019 11:56 AM
Sure, but an SSD isn't ideal for that in terms of durability... writing and erasing large files often.
Ofcourse it depends how often you do that. If you're using it for System Backups like every 2 weeks it's not a big deal. But doing that daily is going to wear it out quickly.
"Fast Storage"
Sure, but an SSD isn't ideal for that in terms of durability... writing and erasing large files often.
Ofcourse it depends how often you do that. If you're using it for System Backups like every 2 weeks it's not a big deal. But doing that daily is going to wear it out quickly.
nizzen
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#5661726 Posted on: 04/20/2019 12:24 PM
Sure, but an SSD isn't ideal for that in terms of durability... writing and erasing large files often.
Ofcourse it depends how often you do that. If you're using it for System Backups like every 2 weeks it's not a big deal. But doing that daily is going to wear it out quickly.
Ssd durability was an issue 10 years ago. Even QLC it's impossible to write too much, when using it normal
Sure, but an SSD isn't ideal for that in terms of durability... writing and erasing large files often.
Ofcourse it depends how often you do that. If you're using it for System Backups like every 2 weeks it's not a big deal. But doing that daily is going to wear it out quickly.
Ssd durability was an issue 10 years ago. Even QLC it's impossible to write too much, when using it normal
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For actual long time storage and backups i will still use HDDs, and that's not going to change.