Which hard drive form factor do you think will die first?

[cbn]

Please elaborate in the thread if you would like to.

EDIT: My apologies for not being more clear with the question. It should have read "What size hard drive (3.5" or 2.5") do you think will be discontinued first by the manufacturers?"

 

[BSim500]

Please elaborate in the thread if you would like to.

Until both prices come down and durability of cheap SSD's goes up, neither. Even pretending SSD's will 100% replace HDD's as boot drives, 3.5" drives are still unmatched in terms of capacity, cost and bulk storage for server's / NAS's / desktops, whilst 2.5" drives are unmatched for high capacity mobility for laptops, consoles, SFF's, NUC's, external portable backup drives, etc. The only truly "dead" HDD form factor is the tiny 1.8" drives used in mobile devices (large capacity MP3 players, camera's, camcorders, etc) that have virtually been killed off by large micro-SD cards.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Seeing how even most tape physical form-factors are still around, I think that both 3.5" and 2.5" drives will be around a long while.

After all, isn't that prototype Seagate 60TB SSD, in a 3.5" HDD form-factor?

 

[Charlie98]

I agree with the above comments... both drive sizes have an established place, and could not readily be replaced by the other in many instances. It's like asking which will die first... the SSD or HDD? Neither... both have a purpose.

 

[cbn]

Here are the Newegg listings for New Windows 10 laptops (from Newegg, not All Sellers):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006740 4814 8000 600566986&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&PageSize=96&order=PRICE

From $185.99 through $299.99 there are 7 laptop listings:

-two versions of Acer One cloudbook with 32GB eMMC (both exactly the same except one has Windows 10 Pro rather than Windows 10 Home)
-ASUS Eeebook with 32GB eMMC,
-two versions of Acer Travelmate with 32GB eMMC (both exactly the same except one has 2GB RAM and the other 4GB RAM)
-HP 250 G5 with 128GB SSD
-Dell Inspiron i3552-4042BLK with 500GB HDD.

So in this price point we mostly have 32GB eMMC, with one 128GB SSD and one 500GB HDD.

From $300 to $399.99 there are 14 laptop listings:

--Dell Inspiron i3552-4041BLK with 500GB HDD
-Lenovo Ideapad with 1TB HDD
-HP 250 G5 with 128GB SSD
-Lenovo Ideapad with 500GB HDD (N3540 processor)
-Lenovo Ideapad with 500GB HDD (A6-7310 processor)
-Acer Aspire ES1-572-357C with 500GB HDD
-HP 255 G5 with 500GB HDD
-HP Stream 11 Pro with 64GB SSD
-Lenovo Laptop 80S60000US with "32GB HDD"
-ASUS X555YA with 1TB HDD (A8-7410)
-ASUS Vivobook with 128GB eMMC
-ASUS X555DA-WS!! with 1TB HDD (A10-8700P)
-Lenovo Ideapad with 1TB HDD
-ASUS F555LA-NS52 with 500GB HDD (i5-5200U)

In this price point we have 10 out of 14 laptops using HDD which is a much higher percentage than the first group. (I am not counting the 32GB HDD as a hard drive). There are two SSD (64GB and 128GB), One, probably two, eMMC (128GB, 32GB HDD is most likely eMMC).

 

[Sean Kyle]

I don't think if any one will go down. It might be both being discontinued later in time!

 

[Elixer]

I really, really hate 32GB eMMC, just not enough storage.
That said, I don't see 3.5" or 2.5" form factor going away this decade.

Not that this was mentioned, but, I read laptops will be doing away with SODIMMs, and just solder it on the motherboard itself. This would be a horrible practice!

 

[whm1974]

I really, really hate 32GB eMMC, just not enough storage.
That said, I don't see 3.5" or 2.5" form factor going away this decade.

Not that this was mentioned, but, I read laptops will be doing away with SODIMMs, and just solder it on the motherboard itself. This would be a horrible practice!

Maybe for cheap ones and Ultrabooks. But not real notebooks.

The 3.5" drive size will die off first. We are already seeing MiniITX cases without 3.5" bays.

 

[VirtualLarry]

We are already seeing MiniITX cases without 3.5" bays.

That might be true. But by the same token, we are seeing more NAS units, that of course have 3.5" bays.

 

[Essence_of_War]

That might be true. But by the same token, we are seeing more NAS units, that of course have 3.5" bays.

Of course?

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/silverstone-cs280-nas-sff-chassis,32536.html

 

[dealcorn]

I think 2.5" will substantively vanish from new products within 10 years. SSD's already replace many 2.5" mechanical drives and (I think) Seagate withdrew from portions of the mechanical 2.5" drive market. As 3d NAND processes mature and lots of additional capacity comes on line, I expect SSD prices will fall and further displace mechanical 2.5" drives. SATA is a dumb interface for SSD's except that it maintains legacy compatibility. If legacy compatibility becomes a moot issue because the market moved on, and better interfaces evolve for SSD's, the 2.5" drive becomes history.

We are far from the day SSD's are cost competitive with 3.5" mechanical drives so that interface will persist for a good while.

 

[KentState]

2.5" makes sense in data centers which want density, but that's not nearly important in a home PC. I think both will stick around as they allow for different capacities of flash storage and cooling. Now, 2.5" may become obsolete if a M.2 type form factor could be leverage without the heat issues.

 

[whm1974]

2.5" makes sense in data centers which want density, but that's not nearly important in a home PC. I think both will stick around as they allow for different capacities of flash storage and cooling. Now, 2.5" may become obsolete if a M.2 type form factor could be leverage without the heat issues.

I will doubt that the 2.5" form factor will be replaced by M.2 due heat issues and space for more chips.

 

[cbn]

I really, really hate 32GB eMMC, just not enough storage.

I also found out some Windows 10 Home 32 bit laptops use 16GB eMMC:

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-Cloudbook-Dual-Core-Processor/dp/B01C8FWQPG

Not sure how much space would be left over after OS install, but I'm thinking 16GB eMMC would only save something like ~$3 retail over an identical laptop with 32GB eMMC. (Likewise 32GB eMMC would only save ~$6 retail over a identical laptop with 64GB eMMC)

 

[VirtualLarry]

Not sure how much space would be left over after OS install, but I'm thinking 16GB eMMC would only save something like ~$3 retail over an identical laptop with 32GB eMMC. (Likewise 32GB eMMC would only save ~$6 retail over a identical laptop with 64GB eMMC)

Which is why, including such small eMMC amounts... is crazy.

I mean, with Windows 10-as-a-service, and constantly updating, and wanting to do "full reinstall"-type updates for major upgrades, having too-small eMMC memory is a problem. Even with 32GB eMMC, on my Dell CloudBook with Win10 1511 64-bit Home on it, I had to insert a 16GB blank flash drive, besides the installer flash drive, to update to 1607. That's a serious hassle for customers. What does Win10 do when it wants to auto-update to 1607, rather than me manually starting the installer in a controlled fashion? Does Windows Update randomly prompt the user to insert a blank flash drive, NOW, because it needs to update?

 

[cbn]

Just installed Windows 10 Home on a Core 2 machine (with Nvidia graphics) in both 32 bit and 64 bit flavors and here were the install sizes (after completing all updates and doing disk cleanup):

1. 64 bit: 16 GB
2. 32 bit: 13 GB

So the 32 bit does save 3 GB, but If the machine only has 16GB eMMC a 13GB install doesn't even allow for 25% spare area. (16GB eMMC with 25% spare means only 12GB is available).

On the other hand, the 64 bit install size of 16GB with 32GB eMMC does allow for around 8GB free room with 8GB allocated for spare area.

P.S. All the Windows 10 Laptops I listed in post #5 came with the 64 bit version of the OS (even if they only had 2GB RAM), so I got to wondering if installing the 32 bit OS on a 2GB RAM laptop might be a good idea in some cases?

 

[VirtualLarry]

My Lenovo IdeaPad 100s "CloudBook", with Z3735F, 2GB/32GB, came with 32-bit UEFI and 32-bit Win10.

I haven't done the update to 1607 yet. Still on 1511.

16.5GB free out of 27.8GB on C.

 

[Runequest2]

I also would not be shocked to see a 3.5" SSD with a larger capacity.

So I doubt either will die.

 

[cbn]

Which is why, including such small eMMC amounts... is crazy.

Going by your example in post #17, a 16GB eMMC device would only have 13.9GB available.

That is barely enough for Windows 10 Home 32 bit which I found out uses at least 13GB.

I wonder if there is anything that can be done to reduce the size of a Windows 10 Home 32bit install? With that mentioned thankfully not many laptop makers decided to go 16GB over 32GB.

EDIT: Looking through the Amazon Windows 10 laptop listings again, it appears only the Acer Cloud book offers an option for 16GB eMMC. Every other Windows 10 laptop that I found has at least 32GB eMMC.

 

[cbn]

Interestingly, the following prediction has 3.5" and 2.5" platter capacity converging at 2TB in 2020:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9866/hard-disk-drives-with-hamr-technology-set-to-arrive-in-2018

And I am surprised that Seagate already makes 2.5" drives with 1TB platters:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178872

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822179107&Tpk=22-179-107

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822179110

Info on 1TB 2.5" platter capacity from these sources:

http://rml527.blogspot.com/2010/09/hdd-platter-database-seagate-25.html

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10757...5-mobile-hard-drives-with-up-to-5-tb-capacity

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10760/seagate-launches-firecuda-sshds-up-to-2-tb-smr-8-gb-of-nand

(Very interesting in light of old days where 3.5" platter capacity was traditionally twice as much as 2.5")

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Actually, I voted for the 3.5" to die first, but people raised salient points here. It's not all that cut and dried.

 

[PingSpike]

I'm still banking on 5.25" bigfoots making a comeback.

 

[cfenton]

I'd guess 2.5" will go first since they're primarily used in laptops and those will all have M.2 drives (or whatever comes next) eventually. I assume 3.5" drives will still exist for quite a while in data centers, at least. Though, looking at the chart cbn posted, maybe there will be no advantage to using 3.5" over 2.5" in the near future. Either way, both will be around for the foreseeable future.

 

[PliotronX]

I think they will be around indefinitely. It doesn't look feasible to hot swap PCI-E storage devices. Four or even eight 2.5" drives fit nicely into a single 5.25" bay. 3.5" is where the huge spinners reside and presumably the double digit TB SSDs do as well. Lets talk about that weird 1.8" form factor though...

 

[PliotronX]

I think 2.5" will substantively vanish from new products within 10 years. SSD's already replace many 2.5" mechanical drives and (I think) Seagate withdrew from portions of the mechanical 2.5" drive market. As 3d NAND processes mature and lots of additional capacity comes on line, I expect SSD prices will fall and further displace mechanical 2.5" drives. SATA is a dumb interface for SSD's except that it maintains legacy compatibility. If legacy compatibility becomes a moot issue because the market moved on, and better interfaces evolve for SSD's, the 2.5" drive becomes history.

We are far from the day SSD's are cost competitive with 3.5" mechanical drives so that interface will persist for a good while.

Form factor and interface are mutually exclusive, there are 2.5" U.2 drives. 2.5" is still going to be in laptops thicker than ultrabooks because its cheaper and draws more attention to have a big slow 5400rpm spinner. Average laptop customers are none too wise of the performance of SSD...