What Your Computer's Drive Will Look Like in 5 Years

[Axemantitan]

"As solid-state disk (SSD) technology closes in on hard disk drive (HDD) capacity and price, experts say it may not be long before spinning disks are a thing of the past and a computer's storage resides in flash memory on the motherboard.

By making the drive part of a system's core architecture -- instead of a peripheral device -- data I/O performance could initially double, quadruple or more, according to Jim McGregor, chief technology strategist at market research firm In-Stat."

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=Storage&articleId=9126238&taxonomyId=19&pageNumber=1

 

[patrick0brien]

-Axemantitan

Having recently been in the industry, I can guess this:

1.8" and 2.5" form factors may be entirely replaced with SDD. 3.5" form factors may be replaced at the low performance/low capacity end, but with where HDDs will be, NAND will not catch them yet - at any price.

As for the peripheral question. I think that the Drive will always be replaceable, because of upgrades, and or wear (SSDs to wear too). However, due to the freedom that SSDs have over a spinning disk with a single-data-path slider, it is conceivable that future interfaces could become massively parallel. Therefore mitigating the interface speed.

 

[Abstract]

Heh.

 

[SpaceMagic]

I think SSD will last a lot longer than 5 years.

SSD wont hit big time until around Q4 2009, Q1 2010 in my believe. Then sizes will go up and prices rage down for two years. Plateau for a few more. They really are the new HDD... and they've lasted for quite a few years now... (30??).

 

[patrick0brien]

I think SSD will last a lot longer than 5 years.

Well, yes, as a technology, it'll be here a while. Unfortunately the duration of a single device haven't been that great yet. The MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) isn't quite that of even the venerable HDD - yet. We'll be there soon.

and they've lasted for quite a few years now... (30??).

Which? The Technology or the Device? The First HDD was the RAMAC on the IBM 305 released on September 4, 1956. Little over 50 years or so ago. 5mb in the space of two fridges baby!

I have a feeling that we've entered an era of storage technology in constant change. A few years ago you could pretty much bet that HDDs were going to be the standard for a while. Now? Hmm, SDD, Holographic, Smoke signals - it's all up in the air.

I will bet that SDDs will be the next step, though not be the standard for as long as HDDs.