5TB Hard Drive....

VinnieThePooh · 9 Dec 2012 at 00:32

jamlays said:
a lot of these high capacity are desktop based though...portable 5tb hard drive is probably 4years away

That's what I'm interested in too.

3.5" drives seem to gain about a TB a year, but 2.5" drives are really lagging behind. They are still stuck at 1TB(I know WD released a 1.5 and 2TB drives but they are 12.5mm.)

I'd really like a 3TB 2.5" drive.

HighlandeR · 10 Dec 2012 at 13:53

Hard drives seem so disappointing this last year, I know the flood aint helped but a lot of pricing seems way off, and the flood was ages ago.

WDs 4tbs are popping up and at £260 I dont know if anyone working @ Western digital has looked out there windows and seen Hitachi (there own company?) selling same sized drives for 50% less price.

It would be real nice if hdd manufacturers can get back to reality the floods were what a year ago? and there are 2tbs externals going for £55-65, why not make the bare 2tbs back to £50-60, and 3tbs £70-80 and 4tbs £90-100 and just stick with it.

Anyhow its just my rant and moan, I hope hitachi do release 6 and 7tb hdds since atm they are the only choice to go for in terms of raw size and pricing imo and hopefully they force the hdd prices to come back to normal.

delta0 · 10 Dec 2012 at 22:40

Western digital know they can't be touched for reliability. I would pay the extra. I really want to see a 1TB per platter Black. Good to see they have a Red with 1TB per platter. So the Black can't be far away.

HighlandeR · 10 Dec 2012 at 23:49

A 2tb should 100% be £60 or under, 4tb never more then a penny over £99.99

Really wish they would sort it out.

As for the WD red drive, there nice and reliable I understand but price wise if a WD 4tb Red appears its gonna be what 250-£300 ? You could buy 2 x 4tb hitachis and still have beer money, so far no ones really done proper test/reviews on reliability of hitachis 4tbs also.... only time will tell.

delta0 · 10 Dec 2012 at 23:53

The internal drives are faster and have denser platters. You can buy cheaper versions of WD like the Green drives. I don't need the lag issues from raid. Reliability of the single drive is paramount which is why WD can charge what they do. They do have a range of different priced hard drives.

spoffle · 11 Dec 2012 at 00:05

edscdk said:
because there is no market for that device

98% of home users only need 120gb, that leaves 2% of home users and a few business' to sell too so the cost per drive would be too much

Business' doesn't mean businesses.

There also IS a market for that sort of thing. I have no idea why you think there wouldn't be.

There are 1, 2, 3 and 4TB drives on the market, so why would you say that there's no market?

The issue with high capacity drives is getting that capacity in the 3.5@ form factor. If they went to 5.2" drives they'd be able to pack more data in to a larger space, it'd probably be cheaper for them to do that.

sunama · 11 Dec 2012 at 01:03

I think server farms might be interested in 5.25" form factor (providing the price per unit is going to be cheaper). The initial cost will be higher, but after this, they should be able to make on-going savings.

I'm sure that HD makers have their reasons, though.

HighlandeR · 11 Dec 2012 at 12:22

I love the idea of 5.25 drives, it automatically solves a lot of headache and problems.

They could pack a lot more space into it heck they really should aim to perhaps do something even longer or bigger since no one uses the space at the top anymore much, bluray and dvdwriters at best one space...

Tomsk · 11 Dec 2012 at 12:24

sunama said:
I think server farms might be interested in 5.25" form factor (providing the price per unit is going to be cheaper). The initial cost will be higher, but after this, they should be able to make on-going savings.

I'm sure that HD makers have their reasons, though.

Server farms wouldn't be interested because of the volume.
A 3.5 HD measure approx. 126x102x25mm = 372300mm3
A 5.25 HD measures approx. 203x146x40 = 1185520mm3
That's >3x the volume. According to my calculations, a 5.25 HD would hold about 1.5 to 2x the data as a 3.5 HD.

2.5HD have an even better data density, but they cost more.
100 x 70 x 12.5mm = 87500mm3, one quarter of a 3.5 HD.
As mentioned earlier, 2TB 2.5HD are available compared to the current max of 4TB and projected 6 or 7TB of 3.5HD

chriscubed · 11 Dec 2012 at 15:18

Tomsk said:
Server farms wouldn't be interested because of the volume.
A 3.5 HD measure approx. 126x102x25mm = 372300mm3
A 5.25 HD measures approx. 203x146x40 = 1185520mm3
That's >3x the volume. According to my calculations, a 5.25 HD would hold about 1.5 to 2x the data as a 3.5 HD.

2.5HD have an even better data density, but they cost more.
100 x 70 x 12.5mm = 87500mm3, one quarter of a 3.5 HD.
As mentioned earlier, 2TB 2.5HD are available compared to the current max of 4TB and projected 6 or 7TB of 3.5HD

I think you're right about server farms - look at SANs that pack in 24 2.5inch drives into a 2U space compared to 8 3.5 inch drives.

I'd like to see your calculations though for the data density though - my rough calculations came out at 2.25x the data as a 3.5inch HD, giving you a 9TB 5.25 disk compared to a 4TB 3.5 disk.

Not saying it's useful though...

sunama · 11 Dec 2012 at 16:24

I think the initial start up costs would be something which is puttong of HD makers from creating a new form factor.

Out of interest, why did manufacturers switch from 5.25" drives, to 3.5"?
I think in the mid 90s, 5.25" drives were available and preferred, because they provided more capacity.

Tomsk · 11 Dec 2012 at 16:57

chriscubed said:
I'd like to see your calculations though for the data density though - my rough calculations came out at 2.25x the data as a 3.5inch HD, giving you a 9TB 5.25 disk compared to a 4TB 3.5 disk.

I forgot that the areal data density is squared, so 2.25 mulitplier is probably nearer the actual figure.

delta0 · 11 Dec 2012 at 17:15

I imagine the speed will be less with the larger drives. The WD Raptors drives have smaller platters than the standard 3.5" drives and they are fast. The only reason to do it is cost.

Berserker · 11 Dec 2012 at 17:54

Angular momentum would be the likely killer for 5.25 inch disks. The outer edge of a 5.25 inch drive would be spinning approximately 1.65x faster than that of a 3.5 inch drive. So the thing has to be stronger to cope, which means more weight (unless you change platter formulation). The tolerance also has to be much tighter to avoid destructive vibration (think about what happens to improperly balanced CDs).

So you've got more weight, more heat (bigger spindle motor), more power, and so on. In the end, it just doesn't compute.

delta0 · 11 Dec 2012 at 19:49

Berserker said:
Angular momentum would be the likely killer for 5.25 inch disks. The outer edge of a 5.25 inch drive would be spinning approximately 1.65x faster than that of a 3.5 inch drive. So the thing has to be stronger to cope, which means more weight (unless you change platter formulation). The tolerance also has to be much tighter to avoid destructive vibration (think about what happens to improperly balanced CDs).

So you've got more weight, more heat (bigger spindle motor), more power, and so on. In the end, it just doesn't compute.

It won't have the rpm the smaller drives have. That's why the Raptor can do 10k because the platter is smaller diameter.