SSDs Have Bleak Future, Says Researchers

We also had troubles going for more data density in HDD's. But every once in a while someone finds a breakthrough like perpendicular recording this last time, and something about lasers is already around the corner. This thesis is based on the assumption that SSD technology wont evolve. But it will... See how much has changed in HDD's in the last decade...

The rate of change in HDD improvements is slowing down:

The frequency of 100% increases in capacity was about once a year in the late 1990s. Now it's every 2-3 years, and the % increase is getting smaller. The jump from 2TB - 3TB took two years and it's only a 50% increase. 4TB are well overdue, and that'll only be a 33% increase.

Secondly the rpm is slowing down. In 2000-2005, just about all drives were 7200rpm. Now most of the larger capacities are 5400rpm. Some are even 5200rpm.

Prices have gone up too, due to the Thailand floods. It feels like stagnation at best, or regression at worst.

What ridiculous arrogance! If this post demonstrates anything, it's that Jupp is not nearly as smart as she thinks she is, and even if she is using alarmist tactics to get her name known, who would want to hire someone so clearly short-sighted?

Computing is strewn with examples of statements from people far more qualified than her about how things could NEVER improve beyond point X, or that improvements would never be necessary - they said it about storage capacity, processor speed, CD ROM read speed, memory capacity, and many more things. Anyone looking ahead 12 years who only thinks that solid state storage will have reached just 16TB, when Moore's Law suggests up to 4 times that capacity, is already flying in the face of current trends.

@retambree

That is because demand for higher capacities is not pushing it enough.
Those times, I always needed more and more space. Now 2TB is more than enough for mainstream. And what I see in most computers don't even come close.

Densities have come to more than 1GB per plate.
Some years ago, it was very common to have 5 plates in a HDD now not so much.

>And what I see in most computers don't even come close.

That's just my point. Capacities are growing by a slower rate. What makes you sure it's demand-created and not supply-created? Just because you don't want more than 2TB doesn't mean everybody else has the same. The market for docks and external drives has taken off in the last five years because people can't get their desired capacities inside the computer. Most new digital cameras shoot in 1080p now - it's easy to fill up a 2TB drive if you have a family and a compact or DSLR camera. Then you want to back it up. Another drive. Digital copies of blu-ray movies are 10GB+ each.

Things don't advance inexorably. Processor speeds have been locked in at about 3GHz for a decade. they've just put more of them on together. There's still no ray-tracing games after 20 years of GPU innovation. Speech-control is hopeless. Monitor size has been capped at 30" for seven years.

A lot of the above comments specify HDD. Wrong article guys as this is discussing SSD.
But I tend to agree that this "student" is way out of her depth.
Who is she at the graduate level to make sweeping statements about an industry, and technology, she has only just been born into!

@Anonymous

Speech control is useless. Who's going to invest millions in technology that can't be used in busy office. Or in an internet cafe. Or at home with other people seating near by. Or on a train, bus or anywhere else?

Monitor sizes are not capped, but simply nobody needs 42" screen in front of their eyes on the desk. Sizes don't increase, but quality does. How much was an average IPS screen with poor response times 7 years ago and how much does it cost now?

CPUs clocks don't increase, but speeds do quite significantly. If this is cheaper and more reliable way of getting more processing power, what's wrong with that?




Today's mobile phones have more processing power than Pentium 4 10 years ago, did anybody expect this?

It’s all 'spin'; excuse the pun!

As demand increases, so will research budgets and technology breakthroughs; which in turn will drive down prices, increasing demand further and so on...

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

Anytime I read an article that makes predictions beyond 5 years out, I take it with a pinch of salt. No one can predict that far ahead with any consistent accuracy and even going as far as five years, it's difficult to be anything like accurate. Six months before the iphone came out, no one could have predicted that in just a few years, every smartphone would follow that same template. Remember just how many crazy designs were out there?

Remember how the tablet format languished for years, ignored and dismissed as an odd form factor, maybe only suitable for some kind of hand writing device/computer for business or for specialist uses like as graphics tablets. Remember how the tech press talked about how a tablet would be too expensive to make, it would never take off because of x,y and z. Today you can't walk past a tech site without reading about how the future is all about tablets.

After a company figures out how to keep the performance of a SSD like new, then SSD's will become a standard part in any computer. Every component that is invented has trouble, all storage devices have taken it in turns to improve in capacity, speed or reliability... SSD's have amazing speed, they just need to finish the progress for the capacity and the reliability.