How Big Will Hard Drives Get? Fun with Math

[SnowWookie]

ASSUMPTION 3: OUR STORAGE NEEDS WILL CONTINUE TO INCREASE OVER TIME.

That's probably the worst of your assumptions.

History has shown otherwise.

FOR GAMES: Cost of game development is pretty directly related to install size of games. We're already reaching a plateau where AAA game development is prohibitively expensive. I doubt we'll be seeing double the install size because that would imply roughly double the development costs, and pretty much no game would be profitable then.

Sorry, but that's simply not the case. Game size was previously dictated by storage medium, with the move from floppy to cd to dvd to blu ray. PCs have already essentially ditched physical media altogether. Increased storage allows development companies to do things like higher quality audio, larger textures etc, that add nothing to the cost of development (since they are typically developed in high quality and then downscaled as appropriate).

Don't believe me? Try installing Titanfall on a PC (50GB).

Or preorder Evolve (50GB) or worse GTAV (65GB).

All other file types just don't take up that much space. Even a massive library of music, pictures or other assorted files will fit on existing storage hardware.

Yes, but again, increased storage capacity will allow higher quality files.

And that's before we even consider new technology. As 3d printing and VR become more mainstream, the average user is more like to start wanting to edit 3d files. There are already scanners that can create 3d models of existing objects; consumer version of those are just a matter of demand.

Every time we have more storage space available, a technology appears to use it.

It will be interesting to see what happens here. Will speed win out over price?

No, speed will come down in price. SSDs are already cheap compared to five years ago and all but free compared to a decade ago, in another five years I bet they'll only somewhat more expensive than spinning platter drives.

Once SSDs are the default, price wars will start as the OEMs fight to get those manufacturing contracts. When I can have a couple of 1TB SSDs in my system I'll be happy chappy.

Well, the question is whether spinning platters can continue to fall in price at the same rate. It's all good to say that in 5 years you can get a 1TB SSD for $100, but if your storage needs are 10TB and you can get a 20TB platter for the same money, an SSD is still a hard sell.

That said, I think you're probably right. We'll see platters run into diminishing returns in terms of how cheap they can get compared to SSDs, and ultimately, the price gap will probably narrow into insignificance.

I also disagree with this quick assessment, but in the opposite direction as the above posters; we've already seen with processing power that eventually you hit the physical limitations of miniaturization and have to look to find whole new ways of processing.

Storage isn't the same as processing. If you want a faster chip, you need some serious engineering. Want more storage? Just add more storage. It doesn't have the same physical limitations, aside from the size of the device, and storage is much less of an issue in the mobile space these days anyway (cloud)

 

[fix-the-spade]

Well, the question is whether spinning platters can continue to fall in price at the same rate. It's all good to say that in 5 years you can get a 1TB SSD for $100, but if your storage needs are 10TB and you can get a 20TB platter for the same money, an SSD is still a hard sell.

I think platter drives have more or less levelled out for price, whenever I need another one I always seem to pay about £40-50 for a decent quality 1TB unit and it seems to have been that way forever.

Obviously the really big capacities are appearing and going down but they seem pretty settled.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

"and put our precious little skull-dwelling jelly-monster to work."

SHHHH!!!!!!! Don't wake the beast, man, don't WAKE IT!!!!

I like your assumptions. Two things; 1: sudden jumps ARE inevitable, and 2; it takes like 2 to 5 years for a breakthrough to get into consumer PC's.

 

[JCAll]

Unfortunately, my rate of buying steam games increases at the same rate as average hard drive size, so I'll never be able to have all my games installed at once.

 

[Athinira]

SSD's aren't really new technology. More... Repurposing and repackaging of existing things.

Fundamentally they are pretty much the same technology as memory cards. SD Cards, even the memory cards from old consoles, all work along similar principles to an SSD...

That's not strictly true. Newer SSD's actually use quite a lot of new technology to make them work, that is vastly different from older solid state storage-solutions (including SD Cards).

SSD's certainly aren't a new concept, but as far as technology goes, there's a lot of new technology in play that isn't just repurposed or upgraded from older styles of solid state technology.

 

[CrystalShadow]

SSD's aren't really new technology. More... Repurposing and repackaging of existing things.

Fundamentally they are pretty much the same technology as memory cards. SD Cards, even the memory cards from old consoles, all work along similar principles to an SSD...

That's not strictly true. Newer SSD's actually use quite a lot of new technology to make them work, that is vastly different from older solid state storage-solutions (including SD Cards).

SSD's certainly aren't a new concept, but as far as technology goes, there's a lot of new technology in play that isn't just repurposed or upgraded from older styles of solid state technology.

That's splitting hairs, surely.

A modern hard drive also isn't strictly speaking using the same technology and methods used 30 years ago. That doesn't make it some radically new technology though.

SSD's, like older devices of a similar nature are a variant of semiconducter memory cell. The technologies used in these in all areas change rapidly, but fundamentally they still all resemble one another.

Just as the technology that makes a 4 terabyte magnetic hard drive possible is different from what made a 20 megabyte one possible, but not different enough to be considered a 'new' technology.

 

[Rhykker]

Unfortunately, my rate of buying steam games increases at the same rate as average hard drive size, so I'll never be able to have all my games installed at once.

That is Parkinson's Law at work for you.

 

[gunny1993]

2; it takes like 2 to 5 years for a breakthrough to get into consumer PC's.

Perfect example of this is HAMR, the next big thing in HDDs, technology works now but will be several years before its in consumer grade devices.

ASSUMPTION 3: OUR STORAGE NEEDS WILL CONTINUE TO INCREASE OVER TIME.

That's probably the worst of your assumptions.

FOR MOVIES:

No way, the people who buy large storage devices currently will buy even bigger ones, you'd be surprised at how many people would rather buy a bluray disc, rip it, then reluctantly compress it to a happy medium of size/quality. My current collection of ripped movies would be over 5 TB if I upgraded to bluray fully (at around 15gig a file, and that's with a large amount of compress).

 

[gunny1993]

ASSUMPTION 3: OUR STORAGE NEEDS WILL CONTINUE TO INCREASE OVER TIME.

That's probably the worst of your assumptions.

FOR MOVIES:

No way, the people who buy large storage devices currently will buy even bigger ones, you'd be surprised at how many people would rather buy a bluray disc, rip it, then reluctantly compress it to a happy medium of size/quality. My current collection of ripped movies would be over 5 TB if I upgraded to bluray fully (at around 15gig a file, and that's with a large amount of compress).