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When Will SSD's Become The Norm?

P

pep.pep

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 13, 2010
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I'm currently using an Imac G5, but I'm looking to get a macbook pro in the future (after the update). I've been reading up about SSD's and their reliability, and excellent performance. That being said, when will they overtake regular Hard Drives?

Is it the cost that is holding back them back?

I'm probably going to get one with my macbook pro.
 
Cost is definitely a factor. Not only do they cost a lot but they aren't massive in storage amounts as of yet either. My guess is 2012.
 
My guess is they will be standard issue in 2014, hhd's will always have a place though
 
RaceTripper said:
Yup, they will have a place. The one currently occupied by floppy diskettes. :p
Click to expand...

Nahh, floppy disks were outdated as soon as the HDD came along, and lets be honest with ourselves, there's yet to be a technology that can out-perform a HDD on a price per gigabyte ratio. I wouldn't be surprised if, by 2014, all laptops have SSD's, but in 2014 there will still be many, many, hard drives sold.

unless scale of economics causes flash to be cheaper per gigabyte than an HDD :p
 
If SSDs don't hit some technical wall in the near future then the HDD, no matter what tricks it may have up it's sleeve, will become history shortly. Five years? Ten years?

The modern HDD is gradually increasing by one terabyte per year every few years. The SSD is still projected to double in volume every 1-2 years. Over the next decade we will see 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 8TB, 16TB... At some point the HDD will not be able to keep up.

Once we see an SSD in the 2-4TB range then a 1TB unit will begin to become affordable. That should be the tipping point. Once we see SSDs in the 8-16TB range then most notebooks should contain at least a 4TB unit. Shortly after that point the HDD will disappear as quickly as VHS and the CRT.
 
I don't think it'll be long at all before all Macbooks are equipped with a small SSD and a larger normal HDD as standard; the SuperDrive will be removed completely.

:apple:
 
-SD- said:
I don't think it'll be long at all before all Macbooks are equipped with a small SSD and a larger normal HDD as standard; the SuperDrive will be removed completely.

:apple:
Click to expand...

I am crossing my fingers that you are correct. And then 5-10 years down the road the HDD will be gone all together as I projected above.
 
pep.pep said:
I'm currently using an Imac G5, but I'm looking to get a macbook pro in the future (after the update). I've been reading up about SSD's and their reliability, and excellent performance. That being said, when will they overtake regular Hard Drives?

Is it the cost that is holding back them back?

I'm probably going to get one with my macbook pro.
Click to expand...

Yes it is the cost ... only when they become cheaper will they be common
 
thejadedmonkey said:
Nahh, floppy disks were outdated as soon as the HDD came along, and lets be honest with ourselves, there's yet to be a technology that can out-perform a HDD on a price per gigabyte ratio. I wouldn't be surprised if, by 2014, all laptops have SSD's, but in 2014 there will still be many, many, hard drives sold.

unless scale of economics causes flash to be cheaper per gigabyte than an HDD :p
Click to expand...
I bought a Mac SE with a 20 MB HDD. Ten years later I bought a PowerPC Mac. it still came with a floppy drive. So your claim about them being outdated doesn't really hold.

But I expect HDDs will mostly be gone in 5 years.
 
thejadedmonkey said:
Nahh, floppy disks were outdated as soon as the HDD came along
Click to expand...

I don't think so. How did we transfer files from one computer to another? How did we install new software that came in shrink-wrapped cardboard boxes? How did students hand in their computer assignments? We used floppy disks for all that, even though hard drives had been well established. I remember handing assignments in on floppy disks through the year 1999 or 2000 or so at my university. Eventually they moved to an online-file-upload system but until then, you'd hand in a venerable floppy.

Floppies remained useful for as long as they were the dominant method of physically transporting small files from one place to another (CDs quickly became the norm for mass distribution). It was between the USB memory stick and the affordability of CD burners that finally allowed us to use something else to carry our files around, and I think that's when the floppy disk finally disappeared.
 
There has also been discussion as far back as 2007 (see youtube for steve jobs and bill gates interview together) that there may be a time where there will be no need for HDD or SSD. All Cloud.
 
Brdl04 said:
There has also been discussion as far back as 2007 (see youtube for steve jobs and bill gates interview together) that there may be a time where there will be no need for HDD or SSD. All Cloud.
Click to expand...

They can keep their cloud. I have no use for it.
 
I think it could be as early as 2012. As soon as price goes < $1 per GB, it would be economical to put 128/256GB SSD in a notebook. Then all notebooks should transition over. Desktops/Workstations will have both SSD(small boot disk) and HDD. Servers will probably go SSD full time once higher capacity SLC SSD's are available. Price will not be a factor there.
 
shawmanus said:
I think it could be as early as 2012. As soon as price goes < $1 per GB, it would be economical to put 128/256GB SSD in a notebook. Then all notebooks should transition over. Desktops/Workstations will have both SSD(small boot disk) and HDD. Servers will probably go SSD full time once higher capacity SLC SSD's are available. Price will not be a factor there.
Click to expand...

I agree with the transition, although I think that they will have to be about $.50/GB before they will really start to take over, and even that is about 3.5x the price of an HDD
 
RaceTripper said:
+1
I don't favor relinquishing control of my data to third party.
Click to expand...

This cloud thing...thru our benevolent phone carriers, over a jerry-rigged cell tower system? DSL? Cable? Satellite? How? It seems like it may be good on specially wired buildings in certain cities, but for the average person? I just don't see how.
 
I guess flash is already the norm in smartphones, mp3 players etc.
It will soon be the norm for many servers that need iops.

I think for notebooks it will still take 4 years at least. Most people need at least 128 GB and many at least 256. I think it is standard once 256 is aroung 150$ and 128GB costs less than standard 500GB HDD.
x$ per GB has to go way down below 1$ to become standard. 1$ per GB maybe enough for wide acception but to ship in almost any notebook it needs to be around 0.6 $/GB.
 
Eventually

They will definitely be the norm but until prices come down for the SSD drives (sizes greater than 500gb) people will still be using their current drives. What may become the norm is a 256gb SSD with a 1.5 TB external. Best of both worlds.
 
Hopefully within a couple of years.

It did cost $1k extra for the 64GB SSD option on the original Air in 2008.. 3 years later, a 256GB SSD is included standard on a model $200 cheaper than the cheapest Jan 2008 model, and the 64GB SSD is standard on the $999 model.

Based on that, I say less than 2 years for all Macs to have SSD's, even the desktops, 3 years for other OEM's to catch up. Don't forget as this transition happens, it will pick up speed and the price is going to fall even faster, so maybe sooner than my estimate. In a years time I would guess, if your buying a $1k+ laptop, most would come with a 256GB SSD. Unless you need a lot of storage, in which case we could hope for flash memory soldered on to the motherboard with a hard drive bay as well.

The big question is when is IBM releasing racetrack :D
 
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