A bit from Pure Storage’s Shawn Rosemarin, VP R&D (Buyer Engineering unit), has been picked up by mainstream tech press as he predicts that no extra laborious drives can be offered after 2028 (opens in new tab) (so from 2029 onwards). The rising price of electrical energy will seemingly be the final nail within the coffin of laborious disk drive proliferation in hyperscalers though the upcoming arrival of PLC (penta-level cell) know-how and the absurdly low Terabyte worth for SSD may play a job there.

As a result of simply in case you have been questioning, it’s all about enterprise clients, not finish customers and customers such as you and me. Pure Storage, in fact, has a vested curiosity in shifting and inspiring everybody to maneuver past laborious disk drives because it sells AFA (All Flash Array) storage, outfitted with its personal proprietary SSD referred to as DFM (for Direct Flash Array).

It plans to introduce 300TB fashions by 2026 and I wouldn’t guess towards a 600TB mannequin coming by 2029. Over the previous few years, observers might have observed a pattern; economies of scale signifies that it’s hyperscalers – not the patron market – that’s driving innovation in laborious drives. That might clarify why 2.5-inch laborious drives have been caught at 5TB for, effectively, seven years now whereas their 3.5-inch brethren have reached 30TB.

And as I famous on this article, the moveable laborious drives, the smaller ones (not exterior laborious drives which use bigger fashions), may disappear as early as subsequent yr as the common worth of enormous inside SSDs continues to fall endlessly. At present the most cost effective 2TB SSD prices round $30 per TB in comparison with $25 for a 2TB moveable HDD.

Customers left lingering

Innovation in shopper laborious drives has already stalled: Toshiba, one of many large three, doesn’t promote to clients whereas Seagate’s largest Barracuda drive, an 8TB mannequin, was launched in 2017 (ed: Seagate launched the Firecuda, an 8TB laborious drive for players, in 2022 nevertheless it’s seemingly a barely modified model). 

As for Western Digital, capability additionally stalled at 8TB for its shopper vary (Blue, launched in 2021) though it has a thriving WD_Black gaming laborious drive. So as soon as, an 8TB SSD reaches $100 that would be the finish of conventional shopper laborious drives.

Certainly, do you have to need increased capacities, one wants to purchase from enterprise, prosumer or enterprise vary for bigger capacities however even that received’t final (Exos, UltraStar . 

In an unique interview with TR Professional, Western Digital’s SVP of HDD Product Administration, Ravi Pendekanti, bluntly informed me that the explanation why we nonetheless can’t purchase 26TB laborious drives (in that case the 26TB UltraSMR HDDs) is as a result of these are host-managed drives that aren’t drop-in replacements for CMR HDDs.

They require host software program and stack modification with sequentialized knowledge streams and error dealing with for random writes. In different phrases, the upper the capacities, the extra enterprise-ready applied sciences can be added sooner or later that may make it costly and complex for customers within the shopper world to undertake. SAS drives or NVMe HDDs anybody?

 The place does that depart the large three? 

Seagate and Western Digital have lengthy hedged their bets because the writing was on the wall for laborious disk drives. Seagate already sells SSDs and Western Digital is a serious participant due to its acquisition of Sandisk and its partnership with Kioxia. Toshiba, however, has been fairly coy about its SSD plans if any.

There’ll all the time be some demand for big capability laborious drives for a distinct segment marketplace for prosumers (primarily NAS) and this may seemingly be serviced for the foreseeable future by laborious drive recyclers like MaxDigitalData or Water Panther that refurbished laborious disk drives from hyperscalers however provide full guarantee and a less expensive price ticket. 

There’s sufficient laborious drives in knowledge facilities internationally for this ecosystem to thrive for the foreseeable future till hyperscalers resolve to maneuver on to one thing else, be it DNA, SSD or one thing else.