Western digital to demo Dual-Actuator HDD's

[CarlBar]

That's really odd then because there's not a lot of hdds of that size for sale that I've seen. Phone sucks for navigating OCUK so I'll have to get back to you on details when I get home.

[LukeSavenije]

Just now, RejZoR said:

I just can't imagine loading anything from the HDD. The one I donated was a WD Caviar Black 2TB that was nearly Velociraptor speeds. It was unbearably slow compared to after we cached the thing with SSD. Or compared to any of my laptops or desktop with SSD only. HDD is bearable if you don't know any better. But once you go SSD it's over.

i mean, i am still a hdd user for some things, but my main pc and laptop already have a 860 evo and mx500

 

tho i am on a wd scorpio black rn, it's different, not unusable

[SenKa]

Quote

Western Digital has rather high expectations for its dual-actuator HDDs. The company expects the new drives to offer double the sustained transfer rates as well as double the IOPS when compared to existing HDDs. Which if we use existing drives as a baseline, would mean that we're talking about data rates on the order of 500 MB/s as well as 160 ~ 200 IOPS. Meanwhile, although no official numbers were provided ahead of next week's formal reveal, the company did publish a photo of its dual-actuator prototype.

 

Depending on price, that may be pretty useful. That's about the speed of a cheap SSD (like my Crucial MX300), I'm interested.

[LukeSavenije]

Just now, CarlBar said:

That's really odd then because there's not a lot of hdds of that size for sale that I've seen. Phone sucks for navigating OCUK so I'll have to get back to you on details when I get home.

watch it on pcpartpicker. so many still get 2tb or 1tb

[RejZoR]

@LukeSavenije

I think servers that don't need capacity or huge write durability already do. The kind of servers that are written only here and there and are only read constantly. I think the speed, noise, vibrations and heat output is so much lower with SSD's that they are already worth it. For servers that require capcity and huge amounts of writes, probably not.

[paddy-stone]

4 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

but we all know, new things cost more money... maybe in the future it can be something, but for today, i don't see the use yet

Yeah, but it depends on how much more money, they'll lose if they get anywhere near SSD pricing and I'm sure they know that, so I think they will keep costs close to HDD pricing as it is now.

[CarlBar]

1 minute ago, RejZoR said:

I just can't imagine loading anything from the HDD. The one I donated was a WD Caviar Black 2TB that was nearly Velociraptor speeds. It was unbearably slow compared to after we cached the thing with SSD. Or compared to any of my laptops or desktop with SSD only. HDD is bearable if you don't know any better. But once you go SSD it's over.

 

If you can tell me how to affordably store my games library plus mod tools plus mod data on ssd, sure, but I've got roughly 20TB of stuff including some backups of important personal stuff.

[LukeSavenije]

Just now, paddy-stone said:

Yeah, but it depends on how much more money, they'll lose if they get anywhere near SSD pricing and I'm sure they know that, so I think they will keep costs close to HDD pricing as it is now.

well... there's only one way to find out

 

to wait...

 

(and btw, wd isn't in danger yet, they still have sandisk)

[paddy-stone]

Just now, LukeSavenije said:

well... there's only one way to find out

 

to wait...

 

(and btw, wd isn't in danger yet, they still have sandisk)

I'm sure they've already tested these thoroughly, it's just waiting for them to release some numbers mostly. I don't mean they will lose as in going bankrupt or anything, just that people wouldn't bother buying them if they are too costly.

[LukeSavenije]

1 minute ago, paddy-stone said:

I'm sure they've already tested these thoroughly, it's just waiting for them to release some numbers mostly. I don't mean they will lose as in going bankrupt or anything, just that people wouldn't bother buying them if they are too costly.

i meant more if hdd would entirely die because of better alternatives.

[paddy-stone]

1 minute ago, LukeSavenije said:

i meant more if hdd would entirely die because of better alternatives.

Don't think that'll happen any time soon, I think it's more likely that HDD companies would drop prices further if possible... plus there are many many servers in the world that save big money with HDDs rather than SSDs.

[Semper]

19 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Cheapest 1tb Barracuda you can find in Brasil goes for R$189,99 which is US$ 49,34 by today's exchange.

Cheapest 1tb SSD which is a low end questionable Kingston A400 goes for R$ 749,90 which is US$ 194,76.

 

150 dollars over-price on countries with much shittier salaries than USA makes a huge difference, so all I'm saying is that HDDs are still extremely important for a great number of markets, it's not pointless.

I never called HDD's pointless. I went so far as to say that I still use one in my system. What I said is that they're on their way out, they're obsolescent. Pointless and obsolescent are two very different things.

It's the case for you that yeah,  Brazil has a warped economy on this matter, but evolution generally isn't dictated by the weakest link. I'd imagine it's likely that when we transitioned from VHS to DVD, Brazil likely went through something similar, yes? I find it far more likely that HDD's will become more difficult to find than SSD's not becoming ubiquitous because some parts of the world still have a massive disparities in the two technology prices. In the event that this does happen, I don't see it happening any time soon, but take a look, are you able to purchase new VHS tapes with any regularity any longer? You'll be brought along for the ride kicking and screaming, so to speak, at which point, prices will improve.

[suicidalfranco]

if it means more storage at a cheaper price point, call me in!

[bcredeur97]

30 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

 

-snip-

Cheapest 1tb Barracuda you can find in Brasil goes for R$189,99 which is US$ 49,34 by today's exchange.

Cheapest 1tb SSD which is a low end questionable Kingston A400 goes for R$ 749,90 which is US$ 194,76.

 

150 dollars over-price on countries with much shittier salaries than USA makes a huge difference, so all I'm saying is that HDDs are still extremely important for a great number of markets, it's not pointless.

as far as SSD's go for archival or large file longer term storage, I agree we definitely aren't there yet. but most people can make do with a 250GB or even a 120/128GB SSD for basic everyday work. Which is where the incentive to buy them is still at.

[Franck]

If this is priced close to the equivalent single actuator version it's a very good option for stream NAS. My 3 NAS and those of my family members are all dual bay NAS. They are fine for 1 TV and 1 sound system but when you try to stream to 2-3 TV in HD you have horrible buffer. This would be a great upgrade and would convince me to stay with dual drive bay NAS instead of going 4+. Other than that i would change my external hard drive to that anytime.

 

I wonder if server grade version would become available like the red disks. That would make much cheaper large storage viable without cache disks.

[RejZoR]

10 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

 

If you can tell me how to affordably store my games library plus mod tools plus mod data on ssd, sure, but I've got roughly 20TB of stuff including some backups of important personal stuff.

For your use case, HDD+SSD hybrid setup using software like PrimoCache, for sure. Basically at cost of HDD's with near SSD speeds. It's just that people don't even go this way, they always do the stupid SSD boot drive setup which is idiotic if you ask me. Just make sure you take large enough SSD for caching, but in general, 512GB SSD should be more than enough even if you play several games at once on regular basis meaning the system will have to cache them all at once (otherwise your last played one will get pushed out of the cache and it'll take longer ot load next time). But if you're on tight budget, take at least 256GB SSD, they are cheap enough now.

 

20TB HDD + 256-512GB SSD + PrimoCache and you're set.

[Doobeedoo]

Yeah with increased TBs speed needs to go up at some point too. Especially IOPS/TB thing. Still cool to see advances in HDD space. 

[BuckGup]

I can't buy an 8TB SSD for $179 though

[LukeSavenije]

Just now, BuckGup said:

I can't buy an 8TB SSD for $179 though

as discussed above... it's more in the 1 tb range...

[BuckGup]

Just now, LukeSavenije said:

as discussed above... it's more in the 1 tb range...

Right that's why it seems dumb

[LukeSavenije]

4 minutes ago, BuckGup said:

Right that's why it seems dumb

again... as discussed above, 1tb is still common for gaming pc's from my experience

[BuckGup]

3 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

again... as discussed above, 1tb is still common for gaming pc's from my experience

Yes

[Lady Fitzgerald]

HDDs will be around for quite some time, even if only because of higher capacity and lower cost. SSDs have been rapidly dropping in price but they still have quite a ways to go to compete with HDD prices. What is really hold SSDs back and keeping HDDs viable, however, is capacity. 4TB has been the upper plateau for consumer SSDs for some time while consumer HDDs have been steadily increasing in capacity, as high as 14TB (for a lower price than 4TB SSDs). It won't be until consumer SSDs can approach HDDs in both capacity and price that HDD manufacturers will need to worry.

 

For the foreseeable future, using an SSD for the OS and programs and an HDD for data storage will be the most cost effective compromise for speed vs cost (and this coming from the old broad using nothing but SSDs) unless only small amounts of storage (less than 500GB) are needed.

[williamcll]

Hopefully it will be cheaper than SSDs

[kuddlesworth9419]

12 hours ago, Semper said:

Living in the states, I don't have direct experience with prices outside my readily reachable world.

It may be that there is a disparity between mechanical and SSD in parts of the world, but unless it's truly an archaic economy that you live with, that gap has closed since SSD's went mainstream meaning that it is becoming more affordable, even if not at an acceptable point yet.

My first SSD was purchased in 2012, overwhelmingly unremarkable in terms of speed (I don't remember my real-world speeds any longer) and capacity was an unimpressive 120gb. I can buy a 1tb MX500 slightly cheaper than that SSD today.

I can pick up a 10TB HDD for £176 a 10TB SSD is going to cost well over £1000 I would say that is a meaningful difference.