14 DAY TRIAL // The PC hard drives era is slowly coming to an end, making way to new technologies and better storage solutions, although it’s not going to happen overnight.
The fact that HDDs are going away shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, especially since they remain the only true bottleneck in most moderns PC. But we also to remember that HDDs are present in many other places, like servers, which probably cover the majority of the market that still needs them.
It’s also worth pointing out that SSDs are not a viable alternative yet, and while they are getting bigger and cheaper, they are far off from what the current technology can offer in terms of storage space.
The industry is changing
The information about this changing trend comes via Anandtech, from Nidec, a company that makes about 85% of all HDD spindle motors. They have been observing a decreasing need for their products, and they are in a unique position to know and anticipate the market.
Nidec estimates a 50% year-over-year decrease in demand for PC HDDs, starting from 2010. Ultimately, about 77 million HDD were shipped in 2017, and that quantity is expected to decrease in half for 2019.
Interestingly enough, Nidec says that the demand for datacenters HDD is expected to increase in 2019. Since there are no alternatives to HDD for datacenters and the demand of more and more space is always on the rise, there’s little reason to believe that things are going to change substantially in the coming years.
It’s also worth pointing out that there are a couple of more factors at play here. New laptops are not shipping primarily with an SSD, and the demand for game consoles has been decreasing since the current generation is approaching end of life.
