SSD Prices Falling Faster Than HDD Prices
Pingdom has posted a chart comparing the price decline of hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid state disk drives (SSDs).
While SSDs remain considerably more expensive than hard drives on a per GB level, the flash-based storage devices are coming down in prices much faster than HDDs have.
According to the data released, SSD memory cost 120 times as much as HDD memory in 2007, but only 32 times as much in 2011. The average price for a HDD per GB was $0.075 in 2011, the SSD cost $2.42 per GB. The lowest per GB price for a SSD was $1.50, while HDD could be purchased for $0.053 per GB. According to Pingdom, the 2011 average price per GB for the SSD is about the same as it was for HDD in 2002. SSDs are expected to be priced at about $1 per GB sometime in the second half of next year.
Despite the rapid price decline, it is unlikely that SSDs will be matching the price level of hard drives anytime soon unless hard drive technology will hit a substantial physical barrier. That barrier has been pushed out continuously for as long as modern hard drive has existed. The most recent increase in capacities has been driven by perpendicular magnetic recording technology and it appears that heat-assisted magnetic recording could surface in 2013 or 2014 to push the limits even further. Seagate, for example, believes that heat assisted recording will increase the maximum storage density of perpendicular magnetic recording by at least 50x.
When I first started video editing 'way back' in 98 RAID was required to sustain the ~40MB/s required for 2 video streams, and you needed those 2 drives in at least RAID0 to have enough space. ~2002 you could do the same thing on a single drive, and have one large enough to store a project on a single drive. Things progressed rapidly until 1TB drives came out, which could sustain a good 60-80MB/s. But the build has been rather slow after that, and now most HDDs can only push a sustained 120-140MB/s, compared to the 550MB/s of an SSD. Seek times on HDDs have always hovered around 8ms, and have never really improved, while the SSDs are 0ms. It really is mind blowing to look back at.
Yeah because we all know that the masses use linux everyday...
The gains in Windows general snappiness are worth it. I never looked back and never would.
The gains in Windows general snappiness are worth it. I never looked back and never would.
When I first started video editing 'way back' in 98 RAID was required to sustain the ~40MB/s required for 2 video streams, and you needed those 2 drives in at least RAID0 to have enough space. ~2002 you could do the same thing on a single drive, and have one large enough to store a project on a single drive. Things progressed rapidly until 1TB drives came out, which could sustain a good 60-80MB/s. But the build has been rather slow after that, and now most HDDs can only push a sustained 120-140MB/s, compared to the 550MB/s of an SSD. Seek times on HDDs have always hovered around 8ms, and have never really improved, while the SSDs are 0ms. It really is mind blowing to look back at.
Yeah because we all know that the masses use linux everyday...
I'm very interested in this and as yet can't find anything.
ie: holiday demand is high
The M4 is more expensive than it was in october for example.
(JEDI gesture) This information is not useful to you...
(unless you're a HD manufacturer)
Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR)
I bought mine for around 4$/GB so it'll be a welcome change if I got the another one at 1$/GB. That would be a good idea to RAID them out then.
Just like we all know the masses know about the differences between hard drive technologies or are willing to pay so much more for less space.
True: Hard drives prices will probably not drop further than their 2011 historical lows (pre floods), due to material costs... But that belittles the fact that the density will continue to increase. Hence, a hard drive 3 years from now, will still go for $50-$150, but the price per GB will drom from $0.07/gb to $0.10/tb...