14 DAY TRIAL // While there is a sort of 'blueprint' as to what kinds of components a PC may have to make it fit into a particular market segment, it appears that the standard storage space is in for a change.
Until now, the so-called mainstream hard disk drive option for laptops was the 500 GB capacity.
Basically, mid-end mobile PCs came with one HDD of 500 GB, while high-end models went for 640 GB or even 750 GB.
Granted, most notebooks are configurable, so end-users can usually choose what capacity they want.
This also lets certain mobile PCs cover a wider market instead of just one narrow segment of the consumer base.
A similar truth exists in the are of netbooks, which will supposedly start to use 320 GB HDDs more often starting next year.
Basically, the mainstream HDD options will change to higher-capacity ones starting in 2011, or so is is surmised.
The main reason behind this shift is, most likely, the way prices have been developing on the storage market.
With HDDs becoming more capacious, average price tags have been dropping gradually.
The other main factor is the happenings on the SSD front. While solid state drives are far from being close to rivaling HDDs in terms of raw storage, they exceed them in most other respects.
All respects except that of affordability, which is still a way off from becoming a dream come true, at least until NAND chips suffer a major price cut.
International vendors are now selling 7mm-thin 2.5-inch HDDs. Such products, like the 7mm 2.5-inch 500 GB HDD from Hitachi, have the same prices, more or less, as 9.5mm equivalents.
All in all, it is expected that, for 2011, 30% of all notebooks will use 7mm 2.5-inch 500 GB hard disk drives and overall 320 GB HDD-equipped shipments will decline.