How long for 5TB SSD's < $500???

[Jimstah87]

Hey everyone just posting hear to see what some of your thoughts are on this future outlook?

[Jimstah87]

Hey everyone just posting hear to see what some of your thoughts are on this future outlook?

I reckon seven years.

[chicksoup]

I'm guessing not before anybody invents a faster and cheaper storage system I don't even think that there are 5tb HDDs

 

 

so if it goes really well from now 5 years or so

[Coombzy]

considering a hard drive thats 4TB is still somewhere near $300 quite a while 

[nsyedhasan]

I want it now.

[Guest]

Gimme a 500gb ssd for 80$ and we'll talk

[helping]

 

 

let me have your hand

 

 

 

i'd say 7 years is a good estimate, probably a little closer to 10 since I expect data demand to go down a little bit. 

[Guest]

I'm guessing not before anybody invents a faster and cheaper storage system I don't even think that there are 5tb HDDs

 

 

so if it goes really well from now 5 years or so

Biological storage.

[chicksoup]

Biological storage.

that would be awesome and you would like have to give it more water or energy everyday

[Guest]

that would be awesome and you would like have to give it more water or energy everyday

It'd be amazing kinda like a cactus or something that would get more storage as it would grow, I'm not sure how it would be implemented but hey we have circuits and transistors instead of tubes why not

[LaoJr]

I don't consider it being a thing right now but obviously in the near future where ssds are no longer fast and new technology comes out 3TB ssd for about 200 bucks sounds reasonable

[spandy34]

I dont think ive seen a 5TB HD yet.

 

Also im pretty sure you cant install windows on a partition bigger then 2.2 TB.

 

Not sure how accurate that is... couldnt find a reliable source online.

[ttam]

Min. of 10 years before we start to see larger consumer grade ssd's that are higher in storage but not 5TB.

[Osmium]

 

i'd say 7 years is a good estimate, probably a little closer to 10 since I expect data demand to go down a little bit. 

Yeah. People are starting to realize they don't need 80TB storage arrays and filesizes are constantly being reduced.

 

I think that it will be under ten years and possibly sooner than 7 but much more than that it would be unlikely. Even if a breakthrough does not happen (which usually happens somewhat early on in a product's life) we will have it in 8-9 years anyway.

[Eric1024]

Okay, all of you are just pulling numbers out of your ass, so I'm going to see if I can actually get some more realistic numbers right now.

 

Note that this is only a Fermi estimate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem)

 

The first question we should ask is: when will we have 5TB consumer SSDs? If we consider that the first consumer 1TB SSD (The crucial m500 iirc) came out around 9 months ago at a price of 600$ or about $0.60/GB, and we assume that SSD sizes approximately follow moore's law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law), then we should see 5TB consumer SSDs in around 3 years. It's worth noting that according to Kryder's Law, magnetic storage density increases much faster than transistor density (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kryder), but since we're talking about SSDs, I figured Moore's law was more appropriate.

 

Now the real question is how much will they cost?

 

I did a little googling and found this: http://www.mkomo.com/cost-per-gigabyte

 

Which says, "space per unit cost has doubled roughly every 14 months." This study covers the last 30 years and is about hard drives and not SSDs, but SSDs likely follow a similar trend. I think the reason I couldn't find much about SSDs is because they're too new. So, with this in mind, if we predict that 5TB SSDs will be out in 3 years, and we know that the cheapest SSDs 9 months ago were at $0.60/GB, then 3 years and 9 months from then (or 41 months, or 3 times 14 months) SSDs will cost $0.60/8GB, or $0.075/GB. This means that 5TB SSD will be about $375.

 

So, to summarize, if the trends continue, we will probably have 5TB consumer SSDs in 3 years, and they will cost about $400.

 

Now, again realize that this is a Fermi Estimate. Yes I know there are all sorts of problems with shrinking NAND, etc, but engineers will work around these problems.

 

To those of you that think data demand will go down in the future, I really don't think that's going to happen. Data demand is growing faster than practically anything in this industry and shows no signs of stopping. Go read the wiki article I posted about Kryder's Law. This trend has been going on for a long time, it's not just a recent thing.

 

If you're curious as to what we will actually have in 7-10 years, I can do that math too.

[Eric1024]

I'm guessing not before anybody invents a faster and cheaper storage system I don't even think that there are 5tb HDDs

 

 

so if it goes really well from now 5 years or so

5 and 6TB HDDs are being previewed to enterprises right now. As with everything, that will eventually trickle down to the consumer.

 

considering a hard drive thats 4TB is still somewhere near $300 quite a while 

The cheapest consumer grade 4TB hdds are around $200 right now. On sale I've seen them go as low as $150

 

I dont think ive seen a 5TB HD yet.

 

Also im pretty sure you cant install windows on a partition bigger then 2.2 TB.

 

Not sure how accurate that is... couldnt find a reliable source online.

See above, 5&6TB drives are being sampled to enterprises. And you can install modern versions of windows (or any os) on partitions larger than 2.2TB, that limitation got fixed years ago with GPT, EFI, and 64 bit.

 

Min. of 10 years before we start to see larger consumer grade ssd's that are higher in storage but not 5TB.

We already have 1TB SSDs, and at CES Adata previewed a 2TB consumer SSD. I can guarantee they're not the only one working on one. SSD size has been limited a lot by controllers and nand price, but the SF3700 obviously allows for at least 2TB drives, and NAND is getting a lot cheeper.

[Gronnie]

SSD replacements that don't wear out from lots of writes, use less energy, and are even faster are already deep into development. Check a few of them out:

 

1. RRAM (Resistive RAM)

2. CBRAM (Conductive-Bridging RAM)

3. PRAM (Phase-Change Memory)