SSDs may replace HDDs in 3-5 years

While I doubt if very much DigiTimes Research predicts solid state disks may replace HDDs in mainstream storage applications three to five years from now.

The large earthquake in northeastern Japan in March 2011 and flooding in Thailand in October 2011 resulted in short supply of hard disk drives (HDDs) and therefore pushed up prices for a while, according to Digitimes Research. In contrast, the average price of solid-state drives slipped 50% in the first half of 2012, making SSDs more competitive in price against HDDs. While average storage costs for HDDs stayed at US$0.09/GB, SSDs dropped to US$0.80/GB.

In addition, growth in total storage capacity for HDDs has been decreasing, while demand for SSDs has kept increasing due to fast growing use of smartphones, tablet PCs and ultra-thin notebooks.