Hard drive prices - and innovation - decline

[Brink]

The price hikes from the Thai flooding in late 2011 are fading fast. So are increases in drive areal density. Is stagnation the new normal?

Hard drive price watching firm PriceG2 - though Storage Newsletter - reported that hard drive prices declined 5% in the first quarter of 2013. While good news for consumers, expect to see even steeper declines this quarter.

Why? Because an accelerating sales decline in PCs is meeting a rising tide of disk drive production.

The bad news? Vendors can afford to do this because they're cutting back on hard drive innovation.

Read more at source:
Hard drive prices - and innovation - decline | ZDNet

 

[lehnerus2000]

I'm yet to be convinced.
A 2TB HDD still costs significantly more now (10% - 15%) than it cost in Aug 2011.

I have noticed a significant drop in 3TB HDD prices though.

On a similar subject, does anyone know why RAM prices have skyrocketed since January (up 33% at my supplier)?
Small SSD prices have increased too.

 

[King Arthur]

I've actually noticed a slight drop in HDD prices. Recently had to purchase a new internal 1TB WD Caviar Black since 1 of my 2 internals had decided it wanted bad sectors and needed to be replaced. I paid $99USD for the new 1TB while I recall paying somewhere in the vicinity of $120~$130USD back a year ago for a 1TB HDD.

 

[theveterans]

SSD prices are still declining and when SSD becomes mainstream, regular HDD prices will soar as they are going to be phased out within a decade IMO.

 

[Britton30]

Perhaps in the very near future we'll see SSDs with SLC nand in terabyte sizes becoming very affordable.

Peter, RAM prices here seem to be steady or slightly falling. I saw a 16GB, 2x8GB, 1866 kit today for $114.

 

[lehnerus2000]

Interesting

Perhaps in the very near future we'll see SSDs with SLC nand in terabyte sizes becoming very affordable.

Peter, RAM prices here seem to be steady or slightly falling. I saw a 16GB, 2x8GB, 1866 kit today for $114.

I bought 8GB DDR3 1333 G-Skill Ares F3-1333C9D-8GAO (4GB x 2) for $48 in January.

When I was checking prices last week it was $64 (it's still the same today). :shock:
It wasn't only G-Skill, all the brands had increased by a similar amount.

3TB seems to be the "sweet spot" for HDDs at the moment.

 

[Britton30]

Newegg.com - Computer Hardware, F3-1333C9D-8GAO
Maybe I haven't been paying close enough attention mate.

Personally I don't like huge drives, my biggest is 750GB I use as my data drive with Users and such on it. I also have a 500GB HDD for useless storage.

 

[Night Hawk]

With both of the two long time HD manufacturers working on expanding capacities ten fold with Seagate working on a new coating for drive platters to see upwards of 20tb to way up even above 60tb you can expect to see prices on 1-4tb models drop sharply once those new drives become available! Prices falling as capacities also increase with SSDs can also be a factor in seeing lower Sata II and III prices come down.

When mentioning how capacities on drives will be seeing a rather large leap at some time maybe sooner then we would suspect another hardware is also seeing a leap in a new direction as far as Ram cpacities as well. http://www.computerworld.com/s/arti...mory_Cube_spec_to_boost_DRAM_bandwidth_by_15X

Here's part of the opening for that one:

Computerworld - Backed by 100 tech companies, the three largest memory makers announced the final specifications for three-dimensional DRAM, which is aimed at increasing performance for networking and high performance computing markets.

Micron, Samsung and Hynix are leading the technology development efforts backed by the Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium (HMC). The technology, called a Hybrid Memory Cube, will stack multiple volatile memory dies on top of a DRAM controller.

The DRAM is connected to the controller by way of the relatively new silicon VIA (Vertical Interconnect Access) technology, a method of passing an electrical wire vertically through a silicon wafer.

While SSDs are bringing faster drive speeds a new technology like this could boost memory speeds which would get us past the notion that pc hardwares can no longer see leaps. This promises more then just another ten fold equation like going from PC100, 133 Simm to DDR or from DDR to DDR2 to DDR3 over time.

 

[Britton30]

With both of the two long time HD manufacturers working on expanding capacities ten fold with Seagate working on a new coating for drive platters to see upwards of 20tb to way up even above 60tb you can expect to see prices on 1-4tb models drop sharply once those new drives become available! Prices falling as capacities also increase with SSDs can also be a factor in seeing lower Sata II and III prices come down.

What's that mean?

 

[Barman58]

tb = Terabit, (though think it should actually be tB (terabyte), which is 1024 (or 1000) GigaByte

 

[Britton30]

Damn Nigel, I need to go to bed. I read those figures as 27th and 60th. yes in drive-speak it is 1000 GB=1TB.
Sorry NightHawk.

 

[Barman58]

It happens to all of us - Try watching the live posts stream by for a few hours - and so I decided to delete some of my old subscribed threads and selected and deleted the newest page not the last, and that was when i first got up this morning, doesn't bode well for the day

 

[Night Hawk]

Gee maybe I should reword that to "from 20 TERA-BYTE to 60 TERA-BYTE during these early hours? :roflmao:

The real problem to be seen when drives that size come out will be with the OS used! You won't be seeing a 7 primary fill a drive that large with a single primary only! The drive that large when OSed would need to be split up since presently Vista, 7, 8 alike don't get past the 2 TB mark. OEM 2tb drives are equipped with a recovery partition that takes a piece out there on the new machines coming out now while C may be only 1.5tb.

The solution? It won't be from using the MBR(Master Boot Record) method seen from 2000 and newer but the GUID partitioning theme deployed to make anything 2tb or larger work with the present versions(Vista, 7, 8) to work with. Early last year WD updated their own Knowledge Base about the 2tb limitations seen at Hard drives greater than 2 TB do not work on existing operating systems

 

[Britton30]

Yeah, that I can read fine.

 

[Night Hawk]

Yeah, that I can read fine.

I think it"s the day after April Fools Day that has everyone a little zonked! This is now a few days later so you can relax a little!

I'm still trying to figure out what I would do with a pair of 20TBers presently having a pair of 1tb Sata IIs for OS work and another pair of Sata IIIs for storage as well as another Green Power 1tb in a usb enclosure I bounce around to laptops to grab system images from. The total on all those is still under 4tera when counting everything. Back up everybody's pc in the neighborhood maybe?

 

[Barman58]

I've always found that as my available storage capacity has increased - somehow my need for storage has increased accordingly

I've currently got 1.5 Tb on my main system plus the obligatory 1TB portable drive and am seriously thinking abour one of these 3 or 4TB drives both internal and of course as the internal capacity rises you need larger portable drives.

I intend to get a desktop drive dock and standard internals for backup in future - my main case has an external caged drive bay so it makes sense so I can swap the drives with my backup systems or client machines

 

[lehnerus2000]

Stuck on 2TB

I guess there's no point in me getting a 3TB or larger drive since XP can't handle it.

Installing Windows on a GPT HDD also seems to be a nightmare.
There are thousands of Google hits about problems (and there seem to be a few threads on this forum too).

 

[Night Hawk]

I was considering bumping the storage drives a pair of Sata IIIs up from 1tb to 2gb and then adding in a 2tb Sata II model as well for storing system images which will still leave the twin 1tb OS drives inplace while boosting the internel capacity. But the cost wasn't going to be worth it at the time since I was already paying out $110 for a Black edition 1tb drive. You might see $5 or so knocked at times at newegg.

A 3tb would be another thought while still not preferring the Green Power type drives there either. That would replace the 1tb which fills too fast when grabbing images from the laptops and a pair of desktops. That's using Acronis TI for the smaller image sizes(compresses image sizes down) for not only 7 but one Vista desktop and Vista laptop as well as a second 7 laptop plus the second 7 Pro mini tower.

Fortunately those do not see the larger volume of files ilke the main case does on a regular basis since the second case is a remote station for other projects as well as others not trying everything out as far as examining various apps and trying various things out along with working with video capturing. That can chew up drive space in a blink of an eye!

The docking station idea will work if you have several small drives or need to recover files from one without opening up the case to install it internally if not having an enclosure. You can stack drives to one side while working with others! You don't see those too often anymore however. When running a fast search EBay and amazon come up first. Amazon.com: 2.5" 3.5" SATA IDE HDD Docking Station Dual Hard Disk Drive Dock e-SATA Hub-red and black: Everything Else

Mainly this is due to the increasing popularity of usb/eSata external drives and enclosures seen in the last few years as well as larger capacity drives being available now that weren't seen let's say 6-7yrs. back. Plus not too many still use ide drives except for maintaining older pcs when needing a replacement. Most now look at either larger capacity, external, or SSDs and wouldn't even look at docking stations.

 

[M1GU31]

Well I have been watching hdd prices the past couple months, I have noticed this myself without having a article to tell me this. I hope they go back to at least normal prices so I can get myself a couple bigger hdd's.

 

[Night Hawk]

I am still not as familiar with the WD Intellipower models but a 2tb Sata III model is now being seen for what I paid for a Sata II 1tb Black edition. Western Digital Red WD20EFRX Internal Hard Drive - Newegg.com

Yet the 1tb Black edition went up $10! The RE Enterprise 1tb drive is also priced the same which is not so common since they typically ask a bit more for those. The 2tb size for that runs $225 however.