The good thing is this usually drives down the price of lower models. Hopefully when 32tb drives are out on the high end we can get 16tb drives for $150ish or less.
I've not seen that for years. Prices seem flat, just the bigger drives come it at higher prices. I paid £110 (about $125) for 8TB drives a decade ago. The thai floods seem to have just put an end to the old gradual cheapening of storage. I'm guessing the main cause is glacial increases in aerial density that have meant it's often been more not denser platters.
In the 2TB/3TB/4TB days I used to buy 3 platter drives that would be 50% bigger every couple of years. The bigger drives are now 10 or more platters.
Definitely not as fast as it used to, but it still does to a lesser extent. Yeah, that Thai flood thing is still being used as an excuse over a decade later. LOL.
Previously Hard Drives would just increase the amount of bytes per platter through different novel ideas like longitudinal recording to perpendicular to now shingled.
But the costs of materials, like the heads have remained static... But these days manufacturers are including more actuators, heads, platters and even gases like Helium to now energy-assisted recording techniques.
So as they have increased in capacities, the cost to manufacture has also increased, whilst market-share has shrunk since SSD's burst onto the scene.
So costs remain static or increased.
Then add supply/demand pressures like floods, covid etc'.
HDD volumes have been in decline since peaking in the early 2010s, as much of the industry switches to SSDs. That means the HDD industry no longer has the economies of scale it once did, and HDDs are gradually becoming more specialised, high-end products rather than mainstream consumer ones.
As do I. I have about 20+tb of storage, spread out in an 8 drive array made of 3 & 4tb drives. In order to get that size, 3tb drives are in a z1, the other 4tb drives are in a z1, then the two pools are joined. This allows for 20tb of drive storage in a pool in which one drive in each bank can fail, and the data is still protected.
Larger drives would allow me to put together more space in less bays with more reliability. I could put 4 20tb drives in a 4 drive mirror which would have the same space, and could suffer 3 drive failures with no loss of data. 8 x 20tb drives could set me up in a z3 zfs array and would allow me 100tb of storage with 3 failures and no data loss.
I know a few people that run Plex servers and have some sort of service that downloads shows and movies that they keep... Like forever. IDK why but people do it. 4k video adds up.
I do a lot of video production (amateur hobby) but it all adds up so quickly. The 2-week shoot that I'm currently working on totals 1.01TB. So you can imagine that as the years drag on, my archive of past projects grows and grows.
I store it locally on a Windows PC mainly because that's how I like it, but also because then I am a legitimate user of unlimited desktop backup services like Backblaze/Crashplan.
While the "online only" aspect is common, many things in life require the space, its cheaper to hold it on a harddrive than pay a monthly fee that would cost more than the hard drive. That being said backing up to a NAS, that backs up to cloud, it still a better option than just backing straight up to the cloud. RAW images, video, lossless music takes up LOTS of space.
Which brings to natural disasters, even the most advanced internet connected countries have outages be it from natural disaster, man made they happen. Seems more often lately. I mean we had a internet outage for 4 days once because it was to HOT, like i never in a million years thought that was a thing. lol
Gaming my friend, gaming. Games are rapidly getting into the hundreds of GB in required storage, not to mention those of us who work using 3D model art and other media creation. Linus media group has a several petabyte of ssd storage for their videos. (While not ssd these hdd would allow for at least 2 petabyte of storage.) These drives are also perfect for a NAS.
I recently picked up a number of 16TB refurbs with 5 year warranties for $170 a piece. All work perfectly, and are very fast.
As for why? I have a large unraid array that I use for data storage, and a handful of 16TB drives use far less power and generate less heat than twice as many 8TBs that were approaching their EOL.
The question is how you put these large drives in an array? I dislike putting them in a Z1/2/3 array because when a drive has to be resilvered, ALL drives in the array need to read all data on the disk. At the moment my main storage array is a mirrored vdev with 2x 6Tb, 2x 12Tb and 2x 14Tb.
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dontlistentome - Thursday, June 8, 2023 - link
32TB? How many kidneys?goatfajitas - Thursday, June 8, 2023 - link
The good thing is this usually drives down the price of lower models. Hopefully when 32tb drives are out on the high end we can get 16tb drives for $150ish or less.dontlistentome - Thursday, June 8, 2023 - link
I've not seen that for years. Prices seem flat, just the bigger drives come it at higher prices. I paid £110 (about $125) for 8TB drives a decade ago. The thai floods seem to have just put an end to the old gradual cheapening of storage. I'm guessing the main cause is glacial increases in aerial density that have meant it's often been more not denser platters.In the 2TB/3TB/4TB days I used to buy 3 platter drives that would be 50% bigger every couple of years. The bigger drives are now 10 or more platters.
goatfajitas - Thursday, June 8, 2023 - link
Definitely not as fast as it used to, but it still does to a lesser extent. Yeah, that Thai flood thing is still being used as an excuse over a decade later. LOL.sheh - Thursday, June 8, 2023 - link
AFAIK 8TB drives in the consumer space were released only 8.5 years ago, and for around $250 in the US:https://www.engadget.com/2014-12-12-seagate-ships-...
StevoLincolnite - Friday, June 9, 2023 - link
Previously Hard Drives would just increase the amount of bytes per platter through different novel ideas like longitudinal recording to perpendicular to now shingled.But the costs of materials, like the heads have remained static... But these days manufacturers are including more actuators, heads, platters and even gases like Helium to now energy-assisted recording techniques.
So as they have increased in capacities, the cost to manufacture has also increased, whilst market-share has shrunk since SSD's burst onto the scene.
So costs remain static or increased.
Then add supply/demand pressures like floods, covid etc'.
sheh - Friday, June 9, 2023 - link
Price per TB has dropped, although the rate has slowed down.For example (and consumer prices could be cheaper with sale-hunting):
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/...
sheh - Friday, June 9, 2023 - link
Or rather, a longer time span graph:https://www.backblaze.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/...
From here:
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-cost-per...
Renaissance - Sunday, June 11, 2023 - link
HDD volumes have been in decline since peaking in the early 2010s, as much of the industry switches to SSDs. That means the HDD industry no longer has the economies of scale it once did, and HDDs are gradually becoming more specialised, high-end products rather than mainstream consumer ones.lemurbutton - Thursday, June 8, 2023 - link
Genuine question, for those not working at a data center, why do you still need such a large spinning drive?Porn can be streamed. You know?
Desierz - Thursday, June 8, 2023 - link
Personally. I use it to store TV shows, films and anime.bill.rookard - Thursday, June 8, 2023 - link
As do I. I have about 20+tb of storage, spread out in an 8 drive array made of 3 & 4tb drives. In order to get that size, 3tb drives are in a z1, the other 4tb drives are in a z1, then the two pools are joined. This allows for 20tb of drive storage in a pool in which one drive in each bank can fail, and the data is still protected.Larger drives would allow me to put together more space in less bays with more reliability. I could put 4 20tb drives in a 4 drive mirror which would have the same space, and could suffer 3 drive failures with no loss of data. 8 x 20tb drives could set me up in a z3 zfs array and would allow me 100tb of storage with 3 failures and no data loss.
goatfajitas - Thursday, June 8, 2023 - link
I know a few people that run Plex servers and have some sort of service that downloads shows and movies that they keep... Like forever. IDK why but people do it. 4k video adds up.sturmen - Thursday, June 8, 2023 - link
I do a lot of video production (amateur hobby) but it all adds up so quickly. The 2-week shoot that I'm currently working on totals 1.01TB. So you can imagine that as the years drag on, my archive of past projects grows and grows.I store it locally on a Windows PC mainly because that's how I like it, but also because then I am a legitimate user of unlimited desktop backup services like Backblaze/Crashplan.
dontlistentome - Thursday, June 8, 2023 - link
A DVD/BluRay/UHD BluRay library i've been building for 25 years.Instant on-demand playback and no silly removal of films or series at random times (and no post modern censoring of old TV shows and films).
shabby - Thursday, June 8, 2023 - link
Linux ISOs...meacupla - Thursday, June 8, 2023 - link
popup ads on streaming websites are a thingslow internet speeds in some regions
im.thatoneguy - Thursday, June 8, 2023 - link
Archiving 4k and 8k uncompressed renders and footage from Red and Arri cameras.imaheadcase - Thursday, June 8, 2023 - link
While the "online only" aspect is common, many things in life require the space, its cheaper to hold it on a harddrive than pay a monthly fee that would cost more than the hard drive. That being said backing up to a NAS, that backs up to cloud, it still a better option than just backing straight up to the cloud. RAW images, video, lossless music takes up LOTS of space.Which brings to natural disasters, even the most advanced internet connected countries have outages be it from natural disaster, man made they happen. Seems more often lately. I mean we had a internet outage for 4 days once because it was to HOT, like i never in a million years thought that was a thing. lol
Shironeko - Friday, June 9, 2023 - link
Gaming my friend, gaming. Games are rapidly getting into the hundreds of GB in required storage, not to mention those of us who work using 3D model art and other media creation. Linus media group has a several petabyte of ssd storage for their videos. (While not ssd these hdd would allow for at least 2 petabyte of storage.) These drives are also perfect for a NAS.StevoLincolnite - Friday, June 9, 2023 - link
My Xbox Series X has a 16TB mechanical drive, I would have had a a larger drive, but the console doesn't support it.My Game library is about 800~ titles strong at this point.
Me123214 - Sunday, June 11, 2023 - link
In bioscience, we crave disk space. S3 and the like are too expensive to store the data in the long run. 40Tb drivers would be a bliss.sheh - Sunday, June 11, 2023 - link
40Tb ones already exist. The largest mainstream ones are 176Tb. :)charlesg - Thursday, June 8, 2023 - link
I recently picked up a number of 16TB refurbs with 5 year warranties for $170 a piece. All work perfectly, and are very fast.As for why? I have a large unraid array that I use for data storage, and a handful of 16TB drives use far less power and generate less heat than twice as many 8TBs that were approaching their EOL.
18s and larger were out of my price range.
32s will only make things better.
coburn_c - Thursday, June 8, 2023 - link
bout dang timeboozed - Friday, June 9, 2023 - link
I can't wait for Anandtech to recommend these as the "consumer" option.Wereweeb - Saturday, June 10, 2023 - link
"Low-end HDD's"johanpm - Monday, June 19, 2023 - link
The question is how you put these large drives in an array? I dislike putting them in a Z1/2/3 array because when a drive has to be resilvered, ALL drives in the array need to read all data on the disk. At the moment my main storage array is a mirrored vdev with 2x 6Tb, 2x 12Tb and 2x 14Tb.