$200 1TB SSDs (predictions)?

[ND40oz]

Q2 is what I've heard but you're right, Micron/Crucial has not officially stated the release time frame yet. I just sent them an email and asked if the release schedule has gotten any more specific, let's see what they respond.

Excellent, thanks. Their announcement worked on me, I've been holding off buying an 840 Pro while waiting for the larger M500.

 

[Vinwiesel]

What I don't get is why HDD sizes are stagnating. As SDD prices come down, the HDD makers are pretty soon going to have no argument for their products, if they don't increase capacity.

The last time the market stagnated was before the PMR breakthrough, but the manufacturers are once again hitting the limits of what PMR can do. Roughly around 1tb/platter. They are exploring options such as more platters in a helium filled drive, patterned surfaces which will allow greater density, or a new surface material which requires the surface to be heated before being written to.

The first couple options may double the capacity, and are a little easier to do short term, but HAMR (heat assisted magnetic recording) promises to allow much more than double the data per platter. The tech is only in its early stages though, so it will probably be a couple years before they are readily available. But once it comes to market we should be seeing decent capacity gains again each year.

As for nand, they keep shrinking it and adding more layers, which makes it slower and less durable. Nand also needs a breakthrough before becoming cheaper/larger.

 

[spandexninja]

HGST says that we will see double the HDD capacities 'before the end of the decade'
http://www.techspot.com/news/51810-...self-assembling-molecules-nanoimprinting.html

 

[Kippa]

When 4k videos come out people will probably want to shift back to hard drives for the sheer size compared to SSDs when hard drives are like 6TB+.

 

[Elixer]

As for nand, they keep shrinking it and adding more layers, which makes it slower and less durable. Nand also needs a breakthrough before becoming cheaper/larger.

Yeah, I don't see them doing anything in the next 3-5 years that will greatly add the required density & reliability needed for 1TB+ SSDs at a affordable price.
I am sure they can do something like a 1TB SSD with the lifespan of up to 1 year of writes max... but who would buy that, even if the price is $250-350 ?

 

[randomrogue]

 

[Hulk]

When 4k videos come out people will probably want to shift back to hard drives for the sheer size compared to SSDs when hard drives are like 6TB+.

I'm not so sure about this. Let's rule out super noisy video. It's hard on the compressor engine and it's hard to tell where to top out the bitrate.

Let's also assume we're talking about good quality h264 two pass compression. And your average movie. Not a short that involves pure motion, water waves, etc...

I've found that SD material can be compressed very well with a bit rate of 2mpbs.
Moving to 1080p, which is roughly four times the pixels, compresses visually in my opinion just as well with a bitrate of 4-5mpbs. Or just over double. Not quadruple as the increase in pixels would suggest. Based on that I think 4k will compress just fine at 8mpbs. Also I expect any new 4k video will be shot digitally and be very clean. And anything worth moving to 4k will also probably have been cleaned up pretty well.

I think it has to do with the amount of edges in a frame of video, which is basically the same at various resolutions. That's where a lot of the extra bandwidth goes at higher resolutions. The non-detailed areas, sky, streets, blurred out background, are "averaged out" by the DCT matrix in the compressor and require very little data to reproduce. If the detail isn't there to be seen my human eyes then the compresses doesn't allocate much data to it.

 

[randomrogue]

You need about 9Mbps for 1080 today. 4K will require the upcoming h265.

 

[Hulk]

You need about 9Mbps for 1080 today. 4K will require the upcoming h265.

Of course everyone is different but my eyes are pretty good and 5mbps 2-pass h264 compression viewed on my Sony XBR 52" looks very, very good. I have to look hard to see any macroblocking or other compression related anomalies. Now I'm not saying it's as good as the original stream which is nearly much larger, but I'm saying it is very close. I've noticed with most movies 3mpbs will show obvious artifacts. Dramas are fine at 4mpbs but action movies require 5mpbs.

 

[OS]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet, but would you want a $200 1TB SSD based on current NAND technology?

Every process shrink results in less rated write cycles, it will probably take atleast two or three process shrinks to get that price level, and we would be talking about a drive that holds 1TB of data that craps out after a couple hundred writes.

 

[hhhd1]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet, but would you want a $200 1TB SSD based on current NAND technology?

Every process shrink results in less rated write cycles, it will probably take atleast two or three process shrinks to get that price level, and we would be talking about a drive that holds 1TB of data that craps out after a couple hundred writes.

I do not think that this will be an issue, notice that doing a full write of 1TB of data would take an average user allot of time to do.

How many TBs are you planning to write per day ?

Even if used for virtual machines, installing a new OS, and filling it with apps, takes a relatively long time.

 

[Hulk]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet, but would you want a $200 1TB SSD based on current NAND technology?

Every process shrink results in less rated write cycles, it will probably take atleast two or three process shrinks to get that price level, and we would be talking about a drive that holds 1TB of data that craps out after a couple hundred writes.

500 writes would be fine with me for a 1TB+ drive. It would be understood that at these (low) prices, large SSD's would primarily be used for storage, not as work drives, and as such write endurance wouldn't be an issue. The benefit over conventional drives would of course be speed, no defrag issues, zero noise, and low thermals.

Smaller and faster drives with higher endurance would remain the drive of choice for OS and apps or applications such as video editing that might stress the endurance a bit more. Different niches/price points for different applications.

 

[Bl00dyMurd3r]

I would guess 2015 at the earliest, maybe as late as 2018.

(See what I did there?)

Wait a minute...

2018 - 2015 = 3.

8 - 5 = 3.

3 = 3.

Half Life 3 = Half Life 3.

Half Life 3 Confirmed.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
(Sorry for the epic gravedig, I came across this thread on google and I couldn't help but notice no one replied to this.)

 

[rahulkadukar]

Sorry for necroposting.

We are barely at Sub 300 for a TB now, next year does hold promise with Intel-Micron and Samsung SSD's. I would say Q1 2016.

 

[seamadan]

whoa, that's an old post Batman. But I'll bite and say Q4 2016

 

[zephyrprime]

I just got a samsung refurb for $180 plus shipping. We are getting pretty close and my original prediction of 3 years is looking pretty spot on.

 

[poohbear]

Back from the dead!!! Interesting to see people's estimates 2 years ago. I currently have 3 250gb SDDS that I bought over the years, each one was about $120-$150 (couldn't afford the 500g ones). Hopefully next year I can just buy one 1tb SSD and be done with it!

 

[lehtv]

Hmm, the cheapest 1TB ones are still $300 new. If we're lucky they'll be $200 in about a year...

 

[Oyeve]

Hmm, the cheapest 1TB ones are still $300 new. If we're lucky they'll be $200 in about a year...

I remember spending $2000 in 1989 for a 200 meg (thats MEGABYTE) HD. I laugh at $350 1TB SSD drives.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I remember spending $2000 in 1989 for a 200 meg (thats MEGABYTE) HD. I laugh at $350 1TB SSD drives.

While I don't remember how much my 120MB HDD cost, I do recall paying $300 a couple of times for a few 1GB HDDs.

 

[razel]

I remember $400 in late 80's for 20MB for a Tandy kit from Radio Shack. I felt bad when later that week I picked up a computer mag and they sold faster HDDs for the same price and it was double the space @ 40MB. I was pre-teen and $400 was a lot for my folks to spend. Luckily they knew how important computers were. By the way, I still have that computer and that HDD is still running fine. Sequential speed of 110kb/s!!!

On topic though... picked up a 960GB Crucial refurb from Crucial a month ago for $190. 2016 $200 1TB new will be a hot sale price.

 

[JimKiler]

I remember $400 in late 80's for 20MB for a Tandy kit from Radio Shack. I felt bad when later that week I picked up a computer mag and they sold faster HDDs for the same price and it was double the space @ 40MB. I was pre-teen and $400 was a lot for my folks to spend. Luckily they knew how important computers were. By the way, I still have that computer and that HDD is still running fine. Sequential speed of 110kb/s!!!

On topic though... picked up a 960GB Crucial refurb from Crucial a month ago for $190. 2016 $200 1TB new will be a hot sale price.

I need to jump on that next time.

 

[tweakboy]

Not anytime soon. Dont hold your breath.