Main > Main Forum

Hard Drives?

<< < (3/6) > >>

MonMotha:

--- Quote from: ark_ader on September 03, 2012, 04:31:31 am ---Those with huge collections, maybe it is time to start embracing cloud technology.  ;)

--- End quote ---

And what do you think provides the backing capacity for multi-terrabyte "cloud" storage systems?  I kinda doubt that most of the providers you're willing to pay for are storing all that on SSDs.  The price would be outrageous and the benefits negligible.

Also, moving 1TB on my home Internet connection would take...about a month or two (to send it "toward" the cloud, roughly 1/10th that down).  That's 1.5Mbps up, typical (if even high end) for the USA.  It would also cost me an arm and a leg due to AT&T's retarded 250GB/mo cap, but note that Comcast recently REMOVED their corresponding cap.  I'm not sure that "cloud" storage is the answer for home users with multi-terrabyte data storage needs.  Even businesses with "real" connections probably have a better use for that bandwidth.

Also, carbon footprint?  I can't comment offhand as to the manufacturing energy usage of SSD vs. revolving magnetic media, though I'd suspect it's actually LOWER per-GB for revolving metal.  Power usage at the PC end for your hard drive isn't a big deal next to your CPU, GPU, or probably even RAM, though you can probably save a few odd watts (at great monetary cost if you really do need multiple terrabytes).

Flash memory is getting better pretty rapidly, but advances are still being made in the revolving metal department, too.  Now, many users don't need the higher capacity offered by revolving metal and thus can stomach putting in a moderate size SSD (which can now be had at prices comparable to a hard drive, albeit usually at less than 1/10th the capacity).  1TB of SSD will still set you back nearly $700US for a low-end consumer grade solution, though, while a single 1TB HDD is often well less than $100.  We're talking price differences comparable to what consumers often pay for entire systems, so this is not negligible, and data storage needs to continue to grow in some user groups (videographers and photographers, especially, and of course the stereotypical porn collector).

ark_ader:

--- Quote from: MonMotha on September 03, 2012, 04:48:17 am ---
--- Quote from: ark_ader on September 03, 2012, 04:31:31 am ---Those with huge collections, maybe it is time to start embracing cloud technology.  ;)

--- End quote ---

And what do you think provides the backing capacity for multi-terrabyte "cloud" storage systems?  I kinda doubt that most of the providers you're willing to pay for are storing all that on SSDs.  The price would be outrageous and the benefits negligible.

Also, moving 1TB on my home Internet connection would take...about a month or two (to send it "toward" the cloud, roughly 1/10th that down).  That's 1.5Mbps up, typical (if even high end) for the USA.  It would also cost me an arm and a leg due to AT&T's retarded 250GB/mo cap, but note that Comcast recently REMOVED their corresponding cap.  I'm not sure that "cloud" storage is the answer for home users with multi-terrabyte data storage needs.  Even businesses with "real" connections probably have a better use for that bandwidth.

Also, carbon footprint?  I can't comment offhand as to the manufacturing energy usage of SSD vs. revolving magnetic media, though I'd suspect it's actually LOWER per-GB for revolving metal.  Power usage at the PC end for your hard drive isn't a big deal next to your CPU, GPU, or probably even RAM, though you can probably save a few odd watts (at great monetary cost if you really do need multiple terrabytes).

Flash memory is getting better pretty rapidly, but advances are still being made in the revolving metal department, too.  Now, many users don't need the higher capacity offered by revolving metal and thus can stomach putting in a moderate size SSD (which can now be had at prices comparable to a hard drive, albeit usually at less than 1/10th the capacity).  1TB of SSD will still set you back nearly $700US for a low-end consumer grade solution, though, while a single 1TB HDD is often well less than $100.  We're talking price differences comparable to what consumers often pay for entire systems, so this is not negligible, and data storage needs to continue to grow in some user groups (videographers and photographers, especially, and of course the stereotypical porn collector).

--- End quote ---

Rewind your self back to when Windows 95 came out.  If you remember (if you are old enough) 1mb EDO was over $100 a stick, but due to the popularity of Win 95 those memory prices dropped considerably.  Same with hard drives and CDROMs  and prices continued to drop and technology surrounding those operating systems continued to thrive.  With this crisis in Thailand, the SSD will have to drop and it is doing pretty well so far.  SSD technology needs to thrive too.

1TB up on cloud?  Maybe not if you are not on Fibre (Europe is) but it is an option to look into.   

Haze:
SDDs aren't a magic solution to anything tho, they're faster and that's about it.

They're still as prone to failure as HDDs (it's guaranteed and I imagine as capacity ramps up you'll start to see cheaper less durable parts used under the assumption they'll be rewritten less) and in such cases they still fail just as ungraciously as HDDs, now you see your data, now you don't.  That could be down to shoddy controller chips, but still, if it fails you don't really care which part was to blame.  We're also seeing arcade games using flash chips to be just as unreliable as those using HDDs, they seem to hit a point where they degrade fast / lose entire blocks of data.

As for 'cloud'  If you value something it might be a useful backup, but as primary storage I can't believe people are still buying into that, you have no control over your own data, think something is safer because 100 people have it?  If it's all on the same cloud storage system in reality there is probably only 1 copy of it.  Putting your files in the cloud is like putting your personal belongings in a storage locker in Antarctica, as long as you're not too bothered about the stuff you put there, it's fine, beyond that?  I'll stick to my personal storage and backups thanks.

alfonzotan:
It does kind of suck.  The 500GB drive I bought for my cabinet about 18 months ago was $25, brand new, free shipping from NewEgg.  Nothing like that right now.

Best deal I know of right now is the external Seagate 3TB at Costco for $129.  Simple to decase it if you want the internal drive (still cheaper than buying one by itself).

MonMotha:

--- Quote from: ark_ader on September 03, 2012, 09:42:53 am ---Rewind your self back to when Windows 95 came out.  If you remember (if you are old enough) 1mb EDO was over $100 a stick, but due to the popularity of Win 95 those memory prices dropped considerably.  Same with hard drives and CDROMs  and prices continued to drop and technology surrounding those operating systems continued to thrive.  With this crisis in Thailand, the SSD will have to drop and it is doing pretty well so far.  SSD technology needs to thrive too.

1TB up on cloud?  Maybe not if you are not on Fibre (Europe is) but it is an option to look into.

--- End quote ---

For Win95, my 486 was upgraded to 12MB of RAM.  Now, this was fast page (with parity!), not EDO, but it certainly wasn't $1200 for that upgrade.  I think you're off by a couple years on that pricing...  I also got a (laughably huge, at the time) 1 gigabyte hard drive and a shiny new 4x CD-ROM drive (a major upgrade from my old 2x).

You'll note that enterprises still use TAPE when they want to store massive amounts of data and don't need comparatively instant access.  It's cheaper once you get over a few 100TB and surprisingly reliable.  I suspect this is also what will happen in the SSD/HDD "contest".  SSDs will get cheap enough for most users to just use as their default storage means, since they won't need the substantially larger capacities offered by revolving metal drives and will want the benefits SSD provides.  Users pushing the edge on data storage capacities, like those currently storing multi-TB datasets, will probably stick with hard drives for their bulk data storage for some time to come, possibly (or even probably) using an SSD for their main OS/application storage.

Also, even with 1Gb Ethernet (typical end-user LAN connectivity), it still takes nearly 4 hours to move 1TB of data.  Internet connections to the home are not going to be there in the US for some time due to telecom monopolies.  FTTH and DOCSIS3 networks are available now in most major cities, but they generally top out at ~100-200Mbps "down" and 20-50Mbps "up".  That "up" number is very limiting for "cloud" storage of large amounts of data.  Anyway, my point on "cloud" storage was twofold: even if you are putting your terrabytes of data "in the cloud", the cloud provider is just going to dump it on conventional revolving metal disks most of the time, so there will still be a market for them even if everybody did that, and you'd still effectively be using them, though your "cloud" provider will hide most of the issues associated with small HDD installations from you (at the cost of being limited by your Internet connection, which was the second part of my point).

I think that there will probably be other storage technologies available (e.g. bulk MRAM or FeRAM or even memristor based memories) by the time the entire computing world is able to completely get rid of revolving metal storage mechanisms.  That's not to say it won't ever happen, but it's not "so soon" as to really start hopping on that bandwagon for large datasets right now unless you really need the performance offered by Flash-based SSDs.  Consider that 5-10 years is an eternity in the world of personal computing.

FWIW, my laptop has an SSD (250GB).  My servers, which generally simply need to store data in somewhat sizable amounts (a few TB), not crunch it, have revolving metal drives.  Seems an appropriate application for each storage media at the moment and probably for at least a while to come.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page

Go to full version