Seagate: Apple is wrong about SSDs, hybrids are the future

Seagate will go out of business with this mentality. For once steve jobs is right.

I don't have an ssd, would like to, but hope to win one here. If Apple thinks they're so advanced, why don't they put a core ix processor, like a core i3, in one of their laptops? Apple taxation without representation.

More space, cheaper price vs less space, higher price. the choice is clear. Less space and higher price! ( yea super fast, silent, cool, but then again also kinda iffy)

I think Apple isn't wrong its on saying its the future of the notebook, but perhaps not the best idea for the PC. First off, a hybrid drive would be a decent upgrade for all of us who just cant afford a SSD. Second, hybrid drives (in my point of view) are just a step towards full SSD's anyway, but there is a definite need for hybrids because most laptops would really benefit from this. Think about it, to the average consumer, "Hybrid Drive" sounds really cool compared to "Solid State Drive" and me personally, i would rather have a laptop with a moderately priced Hybrid rather than an HDD. So in the near-future, i agree its a mainstream tech but over the long run we're all heading towards SSD's .

With all that being said.....One word will explain it all, HYBRID.

Sure, it's not disputable that in the short-term future, hybrids could easily dominate the disk drive sector. However, I don't think Steve Jobs is that shortsighted. He looks much further ahead and sees that SSD will be the storage device for consumer products, particularly notebooks. I don't think Steve Jobs is saying that SSD will be the future for servers and the like. He's very specific in what he's talking about and he's talking about the distant future, not the near future.

Think about it. A lot of technology that Apple came up with were not ones that there was an established market for and yet in a short period of time it created a new market for that product. What comes to mind is the iPod, and then the touch screen phone (iPhone), and now the iPad.

For critics who evaluate Steve Jobs's predictions, I would say before you quickly jump to your conclusions, ask yourself if your critique is about the near future or the distant future. I'm seeing that a lot of critics are shortsighted and only think about the near future.

I like the hybrid drives. I like the speed advantage you get from the SSD part, and the capacity/price ratio that the platter based drive provides. Hybrid drives will be a great alternative until the price of SSD drives comes down in the mainstream market.

Man!! last time i got a Seagate Hard Drive it crashed on me after about 2 month of having it and i lost everything, it was 1.5 TB. Seagate, it just trying to clean up their name with all the messy HDD they have created it, by trying to make something that probably won't go anywhere. They need to learn how to make HDDs before going into hybrids..lol. Now i don't like Apple PCs nor the idealism and monopoly that they have but i'm with Jobs on that one.

Wow. I despise apple at times but seagate has lost their marbles. Their hybrid drive is far slower than an SSD. Why would the future be something far behind what we have in the present?

seagate isn't completely crazy, but they're looking at this the wrong way. the main turn off of getting a SSD is that they degrade(not sure exactly how this happens but they do) and they generally have less storage capacities for higher costs. eventually technology will reach a point where we have very large files and HDDs will not be fast enough for file storage, at this point, we will use SSDs even if they degrade. Right now, using SSDs in laptops is a pretty good choice. your normal laptops will become outdated within around 5 years, so the degregation of the SSDs doesn't really matter.

SSDs are Light, energy efficient, fast, have low power consumption, quiet, and durable. but they get worse over time, and cost more.
comparing a SSD to a HDD is like comparing a laptop to a desktop, the SSD has what u want and expect in a laptop, so it makes sense to use them in laptops.

Steve is right here, SSD's are the future. However I don't see Apple bringing that future to the masses with the Macbook Air as they already overcharge for there hardware and SSD's will just bring another premium on top of that. But Luczo's comments are pretty baffling, while yes maybe right now SSD's aren't the best options for the average consumer, size and price will come down and offer a better deal down the road. This seems more of an attempt to push forward a product that's already outdated and has limited uses to the average consumer then anything else.

Science Fiction writing predicts & inspires the future, nerds & techies usually invent it and then either get bought up by a big company like Apple or create one. All of those products you listed weren't predicted by Apple, they just took them a step further gave them great marketing and put an i infront of them. Apple however is one of the best in the industry at taking existing ideas making them popular & appeal to the average consumer.

This reminds me of the similar arguments that were put forward at the start of the Digital Camera age ... "DC's will never replace film, because" ..... they're more expensive, resolution isn't good enough, quality, dynamic range ...

Technology moves on, guys.

SSDs are based around silicon chips, with no moving parts. Silicon is one of the most common elements around - net cost for fabrication can trend downwards to almost zero. Disks are always going to need motors, rare earth magnets and so on.

History is full of brave people saying things like that. Eg LCDs will never replace CRTs. DVD will never replace VCRs. The car will never replace horses. This "fire" thing will never catch on.

Yet here we are. And there we will be ...

Well its kind of the balance between speed price and size. A pure SSD would be good however, I think Hybrid SSD's are the future

The question is, how long will it take for a 1TB to be affordable? Say like a hard drive is today - $65. Hybrids may take on a dominating presence if the nano-tech, or transisters if you will, cannot continue to diminish in physical size at the rate they are currently. A 1TB SSD will be affordable when the chips inside are the same in numbers as they are today but hold a higher density, ie. more space. For each chip to hold more space the transisters have to get smaller.. We're getting pretty small right now at 28 and 23 nanometers. Will we hit a wall? There are reasons behind why CPU voltages are getting lower and lower with each new generation. And they cant flip on and off any faster. Someone in the industry may be able to tell you. In my case my dad.

I would go for SSD for laptops for sure given the price now didn't make much different between SSD and HDD. No wonder Seagate is now going to private again.

I'm really looking forward to these hybrid HDD's (Well I guess we can't call them HDD's anymore lol)
I would like to have both high speed, and big capacity in one single device!

This comes down to one thing what consumers want full on speed but little space or lots of space with half the speed. I for one would rather have a hybrid drive for a laptop for more space overall but have the ssd for an OS drive on my desktop with a large drive as backup either way it still comes down to what the consumer wants in he end.

If an Seagate-employee said "what the title said" to me, I would have been (close to) punching him (gentlemen don't punch ladies ) in the face! Seagate will drop out of business with this kind of thinking, eventually. How can you seriously not go for something less warmer, smaller, more reliant, more tolerable, more easy to handle and faster!? With time, I predict like many fellow Techspot-members, that SSD's will become cheap and available for everyone. And eventually replace HDD's alltogether.

Everybody thought that celluar technology was beyond Stan McNormalguy's reach, but just look at where we are now... Why doesn't Seagate see the opportunities? Think outside the drive for a change?

Traditional HDDs are still going to be cheaper to manufacture. Notebooks are designed for its portability. The key focus with notebooks should be portability rather than its performance. What's the point of paying a premium on something that is not optimized for performance?

I still think SSDs are the future. Once capacity increases and price drops you'll see more and more people buy them. I just love the idea of them and want to pick one up myself. I am sure operating systems will follow suit. BUT, I can see hybrids being popular in the interim.

Remember CD Writers? They thought they would be too expensive and therefore CD piracy wouldn't be an issue. Times change don't they?