How long do you think it will be before SSDs are seen as the default main drive in most PCs? As prices continue to plummet, I would say in 12 months or so, SSDs should be at a price point which makes them the main disk when speccing a new PC. (And not just for enthusiasts) Opinions?
Already are amongst enthusiasts and mid to high range pre builds. The only market HDDs dominate now is large static storage and the numpty end of the market.
Nah don't think it will happen that soon. May be wrong but IMO standard drives will hold their place as mass storage devices and backup and all that for a long while yet
-7 months, 3 days, 12 hour. SSD is my main drive. 2 of my friends have been crapping on about getting SSD for several years and even with the price drop they still don't because they don't understand the performance gain. Ask them some questions regarding benefits of SSD reveals the following... "SSD means faster install of windows" "windows boots faster" That's it... they think that's all an SSD does... Another of my friends is much more on the ball and has several SSD's. I have 3 in total. 2 x 120gb in my PC and an old 30gb in laptop. Hard disks are now only good for data storage... no longer for booting unless of course you like slow booting of windows + page file access dragging windows performance down?
For a lot of people (parents etc) a huge hdd is irrelevant and a SSD would be much better. It'd be good to see companies starting to move to SSD's for new builds, however I think it'll be a long time before that happens (customer in PC World looks at one pc with a 120gb hard drive (SSD) and another with a 500gb hard drive, thinks "the 500gb must be best" )
SSDs only make sense to enthusiasts. You have to understand that prices outside USA or UK are much higher (in my country i have to pay double) so even buying a computer may be a luxury in itself. That in turn rule out SSD for most people around the world. Where i do think SSDs make sense is in laptops as their lower power consumption lengthen battery life significantly and you can live with less storage space. Also, their solid build makes them much more suitable for portable devices. To be honest, i don't think SSDs will be able to take over spinning drives until new flash technologies arrive and that doesn't seem to be happening any time soon...
My current rig has no mechanical HDD's in it at all, just 3 SSD's. Sure, it does help that my server has 4 HDD's in it, but in reality, that's all they are used for now. Sam
I would, but being on a limited budget I have a hard time justifying it. Mind you I probaby should as a boot drive.. I mean I use an 80GB boot drive as it is.
I reckon about 3 years or so. Even with an SSD, I think most people are likely to have one or two mechanical disks too just because they are so huge and so cheap and you need that for storage. And even as SSD's are getting bigger faster and cheaper, mechanical drives are doing the same too. We will see 4tb disks soon and maybe 6 and 8tb disks before they start to decline. I think it will take about a year to finally get a lot of the stragglers moving to SSD, that will be most gamers and some business users and companies. Then in the second year all the remaining gamers will have one, and even more companies will be buying them. Then in the third year, every gamer/enthusiast will have at least one SSD, and will probably end up with just one mechanical disk. And then the majority of companies will start using SSD's too. There will still be some companies only using mechanical disks for several years though, but I reckon after about 3 years they will be the minority. A few more years after that and I can see hard disks starting to drop off online retailers, and not long after that they will consigned to history like floppy disks.
I paid around £220 for a 128Gb M225 almost three years ago. I bought a 256Gb M4 for £130 last week. So, that's £1.72 per Gb down to £0.51 per Gg. Considering the huge impact an SSD has on perceived system performance, I can see first tier system builders including them in the majority of their machines within 12-18 months. For enthusiasts, the time has already come.
Nobody is denying the longevity of mechanical drives - the OP was talking about an SSD as a main drive.
Oh dang your right! My apologies Wasn't there a similar thread about asking when mechanical drives are going to be phased out like Floppies?
I don't see mech drives being phased out for a looong time. Increasing use of Cloud based storage may reduce demand from consumers, albeit increasing demand at the datacenters.
I don't think they'll be going anytime soon. My PC has 1 SSD and 4 HDDs in, SSDs aren't suitable for storage, and won't be for quite a while methinks.
I don't think it'll be too long til everyone has one for a boot drive! However, seeing as you can't even buy SSDs bigger than 1TB it'll be a while before they totally replace spinners. WD and Seagate really need to pull their fingers out and get in on the SSD game.
I agree with the point made about mechanical drives still being used for cloud storage after all, SSD's still have a limited read/write access amount, although that is increasing as technology improves, so who knows
They are already a main drive Once you can get a 512gb drive for less than £100 you will see them hit mainstream They will never take over for storage of photo and video files
