Western Digital Shutting Down Hard Drive Factory

[AlfaProto]

To read further @ Tom's Hardware, The Register

 

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With the SSD and NAND flash memory markets booming, Western Digital has made the tough decision to shut down its HDD (hard disk drive) manufacturing factory in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia by the end of 2019.

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However, the closure of Western Digital's Petaling Jaya factory doesn't mean that the hard drive manufacturer is giving up on Malaysia. The company has hard drive substrate manufacturing facilities in Johor and Kuching. Western Digital's SSD assembly and test facilities, media manufacturing lines and R&D offices are also situated in Penang. According to a Western Digital spokesperson, the hard drive maker has plans to expand its SSD production capacity. The company is on the verge of opening its second SSD facility at Penang. It expects the facility to start production in the coming months.

Summary:

 

Western Digital plans to close one of its HDD manufacturing in Malaysia, due to the declining demands of mechanical storage, by end of 2019.

 

While the company do not have plans to give up on manufacturing HDD, there are other factories that produced the HDD substrate, and HDD production will have to be spread among the remaining factories.

 

Meanwhile, WD plans to expand its SSD production in Malaysia too.

 

Food For Thought:

 

1. In the near future, will we see mechanical storage pricing at a premium?
2. On the same question on mechanical storage, will we see some HDD capacity disappeared, and is replaced by SSD counterparts?
3. Will there be price fixing on SSD in the future? Today, a 256GB SSD will be ~USD$70. In the future, one is expecting it to be cheaper like ~USD$30, however, it is priced ~USD$60--regardless of controller, etc--focusing on its capacity-to-cost ratio.

Sorry for the poor news post, this is my first time posting.

[PlayStation 2]

1. I doubt mechanical hard drives are going to go up, at least in the near future.

2. I won't be surprised if the 500GB hard drives start disappearing. I mean, that's basically what happened with the 160, 250 and 320GB hard drives.

3. One short sentence: money needs to be made. Attempting to profit isn't necessarily price fixing unless a trend can be provably linked to such.

[Sfekke]

Like @Dan Castellaneta said it isn't like we suddenly won't see mechanical storage.

I have 1.5TB of SSD storage but still have two 4TB spinners for archiving and larger games that do not benefit from SSD speeds.

HDD's are getting old when it comes to OS boot disks but other then that to me they still serve a purpose.

[dizmo]

Charging x amount for your product when it only costs x amount to make is not price fixing. It's called margin. Companies exist to make money, and as such, they will always strive to get as much as they can for their product. You'll see lower prices as companies fight for business; one will lower their price to gain market share, and others will follow.

 

I don't really see the point of anything under 1TB, and honestly in the next few years I could see 1TB HDD's disappearing or becoming much less common as well.

I don't plan to have any HDD storage in any future systems, and only a couple of 4TB external drives for mass storage.

 

 

[AlfaProto]

@dizmo, my 256GB example may have been too extreme. It's probably for a niche market--due to bath tub model. I've seen this trend on low cap HDD. However, this maybe an issue for external storage.

 

I think my 'price fixing' term may have been loosely applied.

[D13H4RD]

I actually live close to that factory. 

 

It's kind of a landmark over in my neck of the woods 

[Doobeedoo]

Oho possible faster storage type transition. Mechanical will ve for a while but yeah. Once prices go down, like halfed, 1TBSSD and like 10TB HDD combo will be amazing. 

[sof006]

I can't wait for the day I can buy a 2TB SSD for the same price as a mechanical one. That day will make me cry.

[Stefan Payne]

4TB HDD: ~100€

4TB SSD: ~825€

 

 

So whenever you want storage space and don't care about Performance, you go for a HDD.

But sometimes you don't need or want the space and care more about Performance -> SSD.

[SADS]

WD make really good HDD's from my experience, i always try to buy their brand for my PC.

 

I hope that their SSD's are of a simlar quality as well!

[Nicnac]

your article is missing a quote

 

on the topic: I think ssd prices will go down and eventually ssds will replace most hdds. Maybe hdds will soon be used for archive storage only?

[mynameisjuan]

Im glad to see them finally fading out. More storage on the the cheap is nice but even since second gen SSDs they do not last as long, the speeds are horrific, they are heavy as hell and they are power hungry. 

 

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

11 hours ago, dizmo said:

I don't plan to have any HDD storage in any future systems, and only a couple of 4TB external drives for mass storage.

I've already completely abandoned HDDs. SSDs cost an arm, a leg, and both of my children but they are so worth it.

[dizmo]

35 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

I've already completely abandoned HDDs. SSDs cost an arm, a leg, and both of my children but they are so worth it.

Good! I can't stand them personally, they're just too slow.

SSDs aren't bad in price these days though. You can get 2TB for under $400 Canadian, and really, that's more programs than most normal people will use.

I'm still doing quite well with my 800GB; only half full.

Though, as soon as Battlefield and a few other games come out....(though, The Division will be replaced by The Division 2).

[79wjd]

2 hours ago, dizmo said:

Good! I can't stand them personally, they're just too slow.

SSDs aren't bad in price these days though. You can get 2TB for under $400 Canadian, and really, that's more programs than most normal people will use.

I'm still doing quite well with my 800GB; only half full.

Though, as soon as Battlefield and a few other games come out....(though, The Division will be replaced by The Division 2).

They're still pretty bad if you want 20TB+ for a server ?

[mr moose]

One day the cost of producing a 512GB chip will cost the same as manufacturing a 500GB platter.

[Egg-Roll]

1 hour ago, djdwosk97 said:

They're still pretty bad if you want 20TB+ for a server ?

This... If I was to convert my 20TB+- of storage into SSDs vs HDDs. While not a server, it wouldn't be cost effective to upgrade even slowly as they die...

 

https://www.amazon.ca/Western-Digital-External-Drive-USB-3-0-WDBBGB0080HBK-NESN/ These contain WD reds (should, mine did)

Where as 2TB SSD here is over $500(I wouldn't trust the $400 or less ones)... I could buy a 8TB retail drive and it would still be cheaper.

 

as stated above by others we'll likely see the discontinuation of drives under 1TB possible even under 2TB. However to assume HDDs are going to die or prices going up for larger storage because of this move is a bad assumption, WD will likely cut the lower space drives and push the factories to focus on larger storage drives.

 

11 hours ago, mynameisjuan said:

they are power hungry. 

Ok... Let's assume the 2TB SSD at $500 (according to WD Blue spec page it takes up to 3.8W) vs the 2TB (my 8TB consumes 6.6 watts, which is higher than my 2TBs So I'm using that) at $100.

 

It would take you at $.10 per kilowatt hour 163 Years before you start saving, that's assuming max load and not idle. Idling might take less time, but I'm sure you'd be long dead before you'd see savings...

Spoiler

Math because I'm lazy to do it in my head today...

6.6W-3.8W = 2.8W/hr savings

1KwH = 1000 W/hr so... 1000/2.8 = 357 Hours for 1 kw

$400/$0.1= 4000 KwH

357*4000=1,428,000 hours

1,428,000/24/365.25= 163 Years (rounding up)

Something interesting in that PDF I noticed however... each increment saw a increase of 450mW of power consumption in read... So if it stays at that rate a 8TB SSD would actually consume a max of 5.7W or 0.9W of what my 8TBs max is...

[Lady Fitzgerald]

6 hours ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

I've already completely abandoned HDDs. SSDs cost an arm, a leg, and both of my children but they are so worth it.

 

5 hours ago, dizmo said:

Good! I can't stand them personally, they're just too slow...

My primary motivation was the weight of HDDs. I'm a handicapped senior citizen and carrying six backup HDDs to and from my safe deposit box at my credit union was killing my back and shoulders. Now that I'm up to eight backup drives per trip, the weight savings with SSDs is huge and my back and shoulders.

 

Another advange was getting more capacity for my notebook, simplifying backups and transferring data between the notebook and my computer.

 

Of course, the speed advantage when booting and reading and/or writing lage amounts of data, such as when updating backups, is nothing to sneeze at. While the savings in power consumption will come nowhere near close to paying for the cost difference between SSDs and HDDs, any savings is welcome. Heat reduction is another advantage, especially when living in warmer climes (such as AZ, which is two feet from Hell).

[genexis_x]

On 18/07/2018 at 3:27 PM, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

I actually live close to that factory. 

 

It's kind of a landmark over in my neck of the woods 

Passed by this building a few days ago

[rawrdaysgoby]

It is a good move by them. 

[NumLock21]

HDD still have is place due to its $/GB. You can't get a 4TB SSD for $100ish. The other thing I hears is data recovery on a SSD is a lot more difficult compared to traditional hdds. Because of this I still keep my data on HDDs, while my SSD is just for the OS, programs, and games, where loosing them is not important and can always be reinstalled.

[dizmo]

On 7/18/2018 at 4:15 PM, djdwosk97 said:

They're still pretty bad if you want 20TB+ for a server ?

Haha, does anyone really need storage that fast on a server though?

And before you argue certain businesses, those businesses can afford to shell out the money for SSDs

On 7/18/2018 at 7:15 PM, Lady Fitzgerald said:

 

My primary motivation was the weight of HDDs. I'm a handicapped senior citizen and carrying six backup HDDs to and from my safe deposit box at my credit union was killing my back and shoulders. Now that I'm up to eight backup drives per trip, the weight savings with SSDs is huge and my back and shoulders.

 

Another advange was getting more capacity for my notebook, simplifying backups and transferring data between the notebook and my computer.

 

Of course, the speed advantage when booting and reading and/or writing lage amounts of data, such as when updating backups, is nothing to sneeze at. While the savings in power consumption will come nowhere near close to paying for the cost difference between SSDs and HDDs, any savings is welcome. Heat reduction is another advantage, especially when living in warmer climes (such as AZ, which is two feet from Hell).

Why wouldn't you just get a single larger HDD?

That seems like an excessive amount of backing up

[79wjd]

1 hour ago, dizmo said:

Haha, does anyone really need storage that fast on a server though?

And before you argue certain businesses, those businesses can afford to shell out the money for SSDs

It's more about compactness than it is about speed.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

1 hour ago, dizmo said:

Haha, does anyone really need storage that fast on a server though?

And before you argue certain businesses, those businesses can afford to shell out the money for SSDs

Why wouldn't you just get a single larger HDD?

That seems like an excessive amount of backing up

They don't make 16TB consumer HDDs (I have four 4TB data SSDs and may add one more later this year). At the time I started switching to HDDs, 8-10TB was max. I would have had to have four 8-10TB HDDs which still would have been too heavy for me to lug around. HDDs also take one heck of a lot more room than SSDs.

 

Excessive backing up? That depends on how valuable your data is to you. For each data drive in my computer, I have a set of four backup drives. Two in each set are kept onsite and the other two are kept offsite in my credit union safe deposit box. The onsite and offsite backup drives get swapped out no less than once a month.

 

The reason for so many backups is any drive is subject to irrecoverable failure at any time, including backup drives. I actually had a backup get corrupted while updating it once because the drive being backed up hd become corrupted. Fortunately, I had the second backup. All I had to do was reformat the corrupted drives, then restore them from the remaining backup.

 

Updating backups take very little of my time. All I do is start the backup, then the computer does all the work . I can keep using the computer or just walk away and let the computer do its thing. Frequently updatting backups minimized the amount of time need to update them each time. The speed of SSDs reduces the time needed for updating backups dramatically. Also, not every backup drive needs updating as frequently as others.

[captain_to_fire]

9 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

HDD still have is place due to its $/GB. You can't get a 4TB SSD for $100ish. The other thing I hears is data recovery on a SSD is a lot more difficult compared to traditional hdds.

Also one benefit of HDDs over SSDs is that you can securely delete data with a hard drive without worrying of shortening the lifespan of the drive unlike with SSDs where your options are only encrypt then wipe or physical destruction because secure deletion creates unnecessary writes.