Seagate will offer 18TB and 20TB HDDs next year

[arrowflash]

Games are ballooning in size, I have 2TB SSDs in 2 machines used for boot and games storage and that free space is dwindling faster than anticipated. In 7 years 20TB is not out of the question for regular use, especially if SSDs really do come down in price as drastically as some people hope.

Of course if (affordable) internet speeds and cloud storage expand faster, then all this local storage may cease to become an issue.

OT comment: Call me a tinfoil conspiracy theorist if you will, but I think the way games have been absurdly and unnecessarily exploding in size - typically due to uncompressed video at 4k+ resolutions and uncompressed audio in dozens of languages including dead tongues such as aramaic and visigode - is an industry ploy to push people into streaming services like Stadia.

And on your final phrase well, the wet dream of current Silicon Valley is moving everything to the cloud (including the OS we're running and even the BIOS/firmware of our devices), and local storage for consumer equipment ceasing to exist. Basically a regression to using dumb terminals connected to mainframes, except this time it'll be fully under their control.

 

[jpuroila]

To all who opposed my earlier post. I'm sorry to say, you guys do not appreciate how fast the SSD industry is developing. In 7 years (2026) it will eliminate by then obsolete HDD market.

Some replies are just outright stupid...


By 2026, a 20TB SSD will be under $400.

It's not 2016 any more, the prices of SSDs aren't coming down anywhere near fast enough to completely replace HDDs any time soon.

 

[cliffordcooley]

I don't know about you guys. I'm sick of mechanical failures. I'm borderline going 100% SSD. To me it is now worth the extra price to drop HDD.

 

[VitalyT]

It's not 2016 any more, the prices of SSDs aren't coming down anywhere near fast enough to completely replace HDDs any time soon.

And that's based on what? I've seen Samsung's 2TB M.2 drives drop 30% of price just last month. All evidence to the contrary to what you said.

 

[loki1944]

I've got news for Seagate's pipe-dream. There won't be any 50TB HDD in 2026. The entire HDD market will be almost non-existent at that point.

In 2026, SSD-s on PCI-Express v6 will be a common place, with average read/write speeds of about 20 - 30GB/s, and capacities well over 10GB. Nobody is gonna want storage devices that are 100 times slower, even if they are offered for free.

It's only 2019, and we already have 2TB M.2 drives for under $400 that can do 5GB/s. In the coming months, 4TB ones are joining in, with another price dive.

Nobody is a pretty gross generalization; considering right now a 2TB SSD is over 3x the price of a mechanical equivalent. For daily use and gaming a mechanical drive is fine; waiting a few seconds longer to load a game or a few minutes longer to transfer larger files is still fine for average users.

 

[loki1944]

I don't know about you guys. I'm sick of mechanical failures. I'm borderline going 100% SSD. To me it is now worth the extra price to drop HDD.

Since switching to WD HDDs I have had 0 hard drive failures in the last 6 years across about 30 HDDs. I have had 1 SSD and 3 Seagate HDDs die prior.

 

[Danny101]

Since switching to WD HDDs I have had 0 hard drive failures in the last 6 years across about 30 HDDs. I have had 1 SSD and 3 Seagate HDDs die prior.

Been using Western Digital since the 90's. Always been satisfied with their drives.