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Not Much Happening in Hard Drives This Year

Posted by michael on from the booooring dept.

yahooooo writes "CoolTechZone.com has an article that talks about desktop hard drive developments in 2005. It looks this year is going to be a dud for the storage industry."

10 of 449 comments (clear)

  1. What about reliability? by liquid+stereo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No more technology is needed. How about reliability?

    1. Re:What about reliability? by Znork · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "very few people would need >160gb"

      Dont have a media system yet, eh?

      Let me tell you, when you start recoring video and storing your DVD's on disk for easy access, not even multiterabyte disks will seem enough.

      Add to that storage for backups which doubles or triples your needed space and you start seeing the problem. Then add mirroring and longterm archives...

      "but you can never fully rely on them to never fail"

      I'd rather say you can fully rely on them to eventually fail. Which is why you need so much space for backups.

      "speed is one of the areas which is always welcome"

      Welcome, but not essential. For actual system performance you're often better off with more memory for disk caches. If you have some very intensive applications needing very high speed you can improve performance with striping anyway, and in desktop systems it's often a better solution as heat and noise from faster disks make them unsuitable.

    2. Re:What about reliability? by wernercd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No doubt. I've had an external for 2+ years that has been dropped, around the world twice now (Second deployment to Iraq for me), taken apart, put back together, reformated a couple times... Needless to say this thing should have died a long time ago

      I think reliability is fine in a majority of drives. No different than operating a car. Gotta take care of it to get it to last 100-200k+ miles.

    3. Re:What about reliability? by Lord+Kano · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Acceptable my ass. I haven't seen a hard drive last more than a year since, oh, single-digit capacities.

      If that's the case, seriously, you're doing something wrong.

      My linux machine is using a 20GB hard drive that I bought in 1999. It still works flawlessly.

      Basically, all new hardware goes into my main machine first, what comes out of this one gets passed down among the other boxen. So, most hardware is at least a year old before it gets passed down.

      If you haven't had a hard drive that lasted for more than a year, there is something about your setup that is simply not right. Maybe you have dirty power. Maybe you shouldn't use your computer on tha back of a moving go cart. Whatever it is, such a short lifespan out of any of your hardware should tell you that there is something out of the ordinary with the way you're using it.

      LK

      --
      "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
  2. Storage by spike+hay · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd like to see more speed, but capacity hardly matters to anybody these days, now that 200+ gig drives can be had for ridiculously cheap.

    --
    If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
  3. What I would like to see... by CastrTroy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What I would like to see is more and cheaper network attached storage devices like the Ximeta Netdisk. With networks being so popular in homes, it's amazing that they don't have one place to store their files without a actually having a specific computer turned on. And most people, including myself, don't see the need in devoting an entire computer to serving files.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  4. TFA says consumers aren't demanding more by filmmaker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Part of the reason why hard drives haven't kept up with other components is because consumers don't demand more features. Seems like people don't want their hard drives to do more - though I know that I'd like better performance when working with large video files.

    --
    I Want To Believe
  5. Article? Or usenet rant? by coupland · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This article is terrible. Looks like nothing more than a usenet rant to me. The author decries the terrible progress of the storage industry, obviously completely ignorant of the fact that the storage industry has consistently bested Moore's Law for at least a decade. If processors increased in speed at the pace that hard drives increase in size, we'd have processors in the tens of gigahertz today. Besides moaning about the slow pace of one of the fastest-paced areas in the industry, what is it the author thinks they should be focusing on? In his own words:

    we would certainly like to see a set pattern where users can expect something significant in this industry

    "Something." That's as specific as the author gets. Storage capacity is doubling every 12 months, but we need to see something significant. Nothing in particular, mind you. Just something. Go figure it out, come back to us when you're done. That's 5 mins of my life I'll never get back...

  6. A chance to take a breath... by Dzimas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I somehow doubt that HD manufacturers have pre-announced all of their little secrets. That said, there comes a time with every technology when things mature - there are a limited number of bits you can fit into a finite space. My feeling is that solid state drives will be the next extremely big thing. 1GB flash memory is no longer a "big deal" and I suspect that with a few significant innovations, solid state might dominate. It would certainly reduce power and space requirements (I can just imagine Steve Jobs demoing the headless Mac Shuffle right now: Smaller than a stick of gum, except for the port adapter...)

  7. Yes, size does matter. by astebbin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think that what the industry should focus on in this point in time should be the miniturization of such memory storage devices so as to fit them into smaller devices such as cell phones, PocketPCs (ugh), etc... most of the technology is already out there, it just hasn't been utilized to its full potential on a widespread commercial level. The most notable exception that comes to mind would be Apple, with their 40gb iPod.... if only we had as much storage on our Palms as well!