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t.alex
All the new ultrabooks come with SSD options but slightly more expensive now. I ...
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HDDs need rare earth elements, will that be a disadvantage in the future?
Report: Hard drives will dominate notebooks
Rick Merritt
7/20/2012 3:05 PM EDT
SAN JOSE – Hard disk drives will continue to be the dominant form of storage in notebooks for the near term, despite an onslaught of flash-based tablets, according to a new report by IHS iSuppli.
Notebooks with hard disks larger than 500 Gbytes and priced from $450 to $550 accounted for the biggest share of the market (32 percent) in the first quarter, iSuppli said. The second-biggest segment (26 percent) belonged to notebooks integrating hard disk drives larger than 320 Gbytes and priced between $350 and $450. Only three percent of the market belonged to 128 Gbyte laptops using solid-state drives (SSDs) or very high-end notebooks with hard drives costing more than $900, it said.
The market watcher did not include in its analysis hybrid notebooks, such as Intel Ultrabooks, that use a hard drive and a solid state drive cache as an adjunct. It also did not consider the impact of Microsoft’s Surface tablet which is not expected to be released until October.
“The rankings show that SSD-based notebook PCs like Apple Inc.’s MacBook Air presently pose no threat to the much larger universe of HDD-based mobile PCs,” said Fang Zhang, analyst for storage systems at IHS iSuppli, speaking in a press release.
“SSD-equipped notebooks are faster, more lightweight and sport a thinner profile, but they are also more expensive and feature less overall storage space,” Zhang added. “The price of a MacBook Air with just a 64 Gbytes solid-state drive can reach $999, while an HDD-based notebook PC at that price can boast significantly larger storage space,” he said.
Notebooks with hard drives “could come under fire should the price of either SSD-equipped notebooks or the Surface tablet PC fall below $700,” iSuppli said. In addition tablets are already stealing sales away from notebooks, something Microsoft’s Surface with its physical keyboard could accelerate, it added.
Notebooks with hard disks larger than 500 Gbytes and priced from $450 to $550 accounted for the biggest share of the market (32 percent) in the first quarter, iSuppli said. The second-biggest segment (26 percent) belonged to notebooks integrating hard disk drives larger than 320 Gbytes and priced between $350 and $450. Only three percent of the market belonged to 128 Gbyte laptops using solid-state drives (SSDs) or very high-end notebooks with hard drives costing more than $900, it said.
The market watcher did not include in its analysis hybrid notebooks, such as Intel Ultrabooks, that use a hard drive and a solid state drive cache as an adjunct. It also did not consider the impact of Microsoft’s Surface tablet which is not expected to be released until October.
“The rankings show that SSD-based notebook PCs like Apple Inc.’s MacBook Air presently pose no threat to the much larger universe of HDD-based mobile PCs,” said Fang Zhang, analyst for storage systems at IHS iSuppli, speaking in a press release.
“SSD-equipped notebooks are faster, more lightweight and sport a thinner profile, but they are also more expensive and feature less overall storage space,” Zhang added. “The price of a MacBook Air with just a 64 Gbytes solid-state drive can reach $999, while an HDD-based notebook PC at that price can boast significantly larger storage space,” he said.
Notebooks with hard drives “could come under fire should the price of either SSD-equipped notebooks or the Surface tablet PC fall below $700,” iSuppli said. In addition tablets are already stealing sales away from notebooks, something Microsoft’s Surface with its physical keyboard could accelerate, it added.
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kinnar
7/21/2012 2:37 AM EDT
It is a very good finding documented by iSupply, the SSDs are good only for power considerations, and users with that sort of power crunch is very less and other way round they will be having internet cloud access through mobile device that really cut short the interest in buying high priced SSD based laptops.
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goafrit
7/23/2012 6:36 AM EDT
I think the analyst may be missing something. People do not go for SSD because of the space, rather because it is a non moving device which ensures your laptops do not crash as HDD does often.
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eewiz
7/21/2012 5:42 AM EDT
This report is total garbage. The analyst has no clue about what is "good enough". Most people are happy with 200-300GB of storage, and dont care for extra 100s of GBs or TBs. The prices of SSDs are going south at a crazy fast pace. I recently bought a 240GB sandisk at 160US$ to replace a 500GB HDD from my notebook. given the current rate of fall, that price will touch ~100 in ard 6 months. In short , HDD makers are going to take the heat from SSD vendors in the next 1-3 years.
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rick.merritt
7/22/2012 11:58 PM EDT
I beg to differ. For half your US$160 you could have bought twice the storage with a hard drive.
Even if you are not dying for extra space, why through money away for less storage unless you are dying for 30 minutes more battery life which I think is a rare scenario?
I expect drives will be cheaper than flash for a loooong time yet and I believe they will continue to dominate--at least in notebooks--as long as they are significantly cheaper.
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ButtahNBred
7/23/2012 1:26 AM EDT
I agree with you Rick. I don't see the point in purchasing a HD with significantly less space for more money. Economically it doesn't make sense.
Also, knowing that I won't have to make a special trip to Staples, or BestBuy in the near future is always comforting.
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eewiz
7/23/2012 5:24 AM EDT
Battery life improvement is only one part of the story. The main thing with SSD is speed. It is widely reported that 3 year old pc with an SSD is faster than a brand new computer with HDD.
Boot up time with HDD : ~1 min
Boot time with SSD : 10-15 sec.
Application load speed, copy files etc are MUCH faster compared to an HDD. And the speeds of HDDs have saturated, while SSDs are just starting.
See the video for a speed comparison.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nis7EhEqo1o
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JAK620
7/23/2012 12:26 PM EDT
Rick,
I agree with your point that HDD costs half the money while providing double the capacity.
But your argument misses a key point - SSD is not only for power saving but most importantly for its speed!
You definitely sound like you have not joined the "Flash" side to experience the thrill of booting your system within 20 seconds from pushing the power button to fully operating and the responsiveness of having any app up and running right away.
SSD is not going to compete with HDD on the price. It always will be more expensive. But the gap is closing fast!
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rick.merritt
7/23/2012 2:24 PM EDT
Fast boot, small size and a little longer battery life is definitely cool.
I just don't think it is on the side of mainstream purchasing decisions which usually favor the cheapest good enough technology.
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Frank Eory
7/23/2012 3:27 PM EDT
I like the hybrid approach. As one of those users who now considers 500 GB to be the absolute minimum disk size, I would prefer to have enough flash to store the OS for fast booting, but have a large, low-cost HDD to store everything else.
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t.alex
7/21/2012 1:49 PM EDT
It's gonna be soon replaced with SSD.
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TingLu
7/21/2012 2:42 PM EDT
I also believe SSD has better future
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GREAT-Terry
7/22/2012 9:15 PM EDT
This may still be true now and in coming 2-3 years, if we just count the number of HDD sales. However, I strongly believe SSD will win pretty soon.
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t.alex
7/26/2012 2:12 PM EDT
All the new ultrabooks come with SSD options but slightly more expensive now. I think the price will drop further next year.
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ronnielee
7/23/2012 6:10 AM EDT
Thanks for sharing the clip, eewiz, great clip!
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nis7EhEqo1o]
It really is the speed I want but not at the price I want. I'll wait a "lil" more before getting SSD :)
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resistion
7/23/2012 8:27 AM EDT
Could it be the controller which is overpriced?
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pixies
7/23/2012 5:35 PM EDT
HDDs need rare earth elements, will that be a disadvantage in the future?
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