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An addition to this previous post about SSD and Flash drive pricing: https://linustechtips.com/main/profile/265114-ryan_vickers/?status=250441&type=status

 

Just adding HDDs to the mix now.  All the same selection conditions apply.

 

image.png.95bd6ef5d01ae976726088658432350f.pngimage.png.f74346d347b20c6cde0c75703690fb35.png

 

Spoiler

Bonus chart with the same "exponential spacing" as the previous flash one for direct comparison on the shape.  Don't be fooled, this is also steep, it just looks more linear above due to additional data points with equal spacing not based on the capacity.

 

image.png.9c18b63bc9a1578f3ef486eb20c4a89a.pngimage.png.e97e41bb247b536a0a23fff7c453919e.png

 

I should clarify, as with the previous post, I've used "GB" just because that's a familiar term, and I've gone with the 1024 multiplier since it sort of comes out naturally as a result of starting from small flash drive capacities like 16 GB and doubling as you go up, but strictly speaking, the point for "16384 GB" is really "16 TB", aka 16 trillion bytes.  I feel this won't make a significant difference in the numbers.  Anyway, on to the value chart:

 

image.png.d682ea47803d2597ffcdf04ae470ea5a.png

 

As with before, this confirms some things that I've felt lately.  Specifically, that 4 TB is the sweet spot, but with higher capacities up to and including 8 TB also being a decent option.

 

If I now superimpose the two charts for the sake of comparison, it's clear why HDDs are still preferred for affordable bulk storage:

 

image.png.e187ad83448476fe893170ded7c9b00b.png

 

Apologies for doing this visually and not just adding this line but I didn't think to keep the old document and didn't feel like recreating it just for this lol

  1. TVwazhere

    TVwazhere

    "BuT YoU dOnT nEeD a HdD iN 2019"

     

    Budget and storage needs say otherwise! ;) 

  2. vanished

    vanished

    Tbf, that statement is true for a lot of people these days though.  I have a decent amount of "bulk data" and so I'm not one of them, but for many people, 1 TB or less is all they need for the entire system.  SSDs at this size are rather affordable, and since you need an SSD for boot anyway, plus it really helps with games, you may as well just do the whole thing imo.

     

    The really interesting market is budget builds where they don't have much data so nearly any drive would work and just want it as cheap as possible.  This used to be where an SSD boot drive would fall by the wayside, even well into the period that everyone should have one, but these days, a cheap SSD enough to hold the system is actually less expensive than a cheap HDD.

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