Future hard(disks)

[SyPheR]

My last post about hdd's was that hitatchi is developing a 5 terabyte 3.5 inch hdd for a release scheduled in 2010.
Now that I know so many people who experienced a hdd crash why are they still developing storage devices running on moving parts? First of all the world is screaming about energy saving (how many hdd power eating pc's world wide?) and about polution (crashing hdd's) that screws up our planet. Would it not be time with nowadays technoligy to make some replacement for the hdd the way it is now or is there just too much money envolved in it? I know it should be possible. Maybe someone has read about some new development stuff about this? I'm not talking about gigabytes ram module kind of solutions cause that just won't solve the nowadays storage needs that can end up in 300 gb's or more.

ps: wont it make our pc's just faster afterall?

 

[nobly]

Right now the cheapest storage/$ is magnetic.
Bottom line, people will only pay more for something that is proven to be faster and better.
So far, no technology has come that far. Sure there's some out there, like carbon nanotubes and holographic memory, etc. But its all prototyped, as far as I know. And I really doubt they've reached into the 300+ GB territory.

Besides, nanotubes? What if I accidentally step on them? I just screwed everything up? Holographic? What if some dust gets in?

Magnetic is pretty hardy. Drive crashes are inevitable, just like everything else in the world - it degrades. Even if the next bestest thing comes along, there will still be a chance for it to fail.

 

[Whizzard9992]

Nano-technology wil likely obsolete magnetic media by 2015 anyway. Carbon Nano-tubes are just too efficient.

Solid-State, non-volitile media maxes at about 5GB right now. Magnetic media maxes at about 500 GB. That's why it's still around.

The i-RAM uses memory in place of a hard drive, and maxes at about 4 GB at ~ $600, just for comparison.

Our hard drives will likely be solid-state, and our games will be on holographic media by 2015. Then again, by then, we may all be dead thanks to a wayward meteor. Until then, capitalism will cook the earth, one o-zone at a time

 

[jap0nes]

actually, hd's does not consume too much power... about 15-20 W average... much much less than video cards or processors.

also, environmentally speaking... the most part of an hd is recyclabe... basically aluminum, some steel, some plastic...

as others pointed out, magnetic media is the better performance/capacity/price combination...

 

[FITCamaro]

Hard drives don't use that much power and how does a hard drive crashing cause pollution? Or are you just talking about people throwing them away and that causes pollution? Thats only because people are stupid and don't recycle the drive.

 

[SyPheR]

Hard drives don't use that much power and how does a hard drive crashing cause pollution? Or are you just talking about people throwing them away and that causes pollution? Thats only because people are stupid and don't recycle the drive.

actually, hd's does not consume too much power... about 15-20 W average... much much less than video cards or processors.

also, environmentally speaking... the most part of an hd is recyclabe... basically aluminum, some steel, some plastic...

as others pointed out, magnetic media is the better performance/capacity/price combination...

Well, some people just dont know what to do with them after the hdd becomes useless and about the power.....I never thought it could be that low but I thrust you on this one Still the problem with hdd's crashing is something that still happens in a common way. Now you might think that also graphic cards crash and stuff but I think it has something to do with the moving parts and the heat development problems (that offcourse can be solved by turning your machine into an airplane)

 

[Whizzard9992]

It's ideal to remove all moving parrts from a computer. It makes the computer quieter, more power efficient, and more tolerant to the environment (i.e. easier to install in a moving vehicle, industrial environment, etc). Electro-mechanical devices are known to be less reliable than fully solid-state devices, especially in the industrial sector.

Google it

 

[mesarectifier]

Yeah, but 15-20w of power times probably an average of 2 in desktop systems, times the number of desktop systems in the world...then there's servers; the whole of the internet AND corporate/miliatary servers. 15-20w per hard disk that potentially could be swapped for much more efficient solid-state memory would save s**tloads of power.

I know it's far away, but imagine how much power could be saved replacing all the 15k SCSI drives in the world with solid state.

 

[SyPheR]

Yeah, but 15-20w of power times probably an average of 2 in desktop systems, times the number of desktop systems in the world...then there's servers; the whole of the internet AND corporate/miliatary servers. 15-20w per hard disk that potentially could be swapped for much more efficient solid-state memory would save s**tloads of power.

I know it's far away, but imagine how much power could be saved replacing all the 15k SCSI drives in the world with solid state.

Sometimes I don't know how to explain these things but you've got a great point here