PC hard drive shipments could fall by 50% this year...

[Ty Harper]

2 hours ago, JurijTurnsek said:

I am guessing video professionals are well connected, since many hire each other for help on bigger jobs. Now consider purchasing an identical NAS at your place and at the place of your colleague's and split the space on both. You probably both have optical connections and could schedule mirroring via internet to be done each night. Keep credential secret from each other and encrypt your partitions if the trust level is low. 

The only downside being that a natural disaster can doom you both if you live in close proximity.

Anyone ever considered tape drives? Also, what is the oldest footage you absolutely had to dig up for any reason (reviving family moments is fun, but client footage from years ago sounds like a dull affair)?

I remember doing a sh*t load of research into LTO drives and there was one thing I found out that made me not do it... just can't remember exactly what it was, sorry...

[IronFilm]

11 hours ago, Mokara said:

Why would streaming have an impact? The data still has to be stored somewhere.

100 people streaming from one service needs less HDD storage than 100 people playing a movie locally from their own HDD

[Ty Harper]

8 hours ago, IronFilm said:

100 people streaming from one service needs less HDD storage than 100 people playing a movie locally from their own HDD

Yes, this too, but basically there are tons of legit business reasons why media companies are putting pressure on consumers to not care about storage anymore, and that will end up impacting indie creators who still need to care about storage, if they want to make anything that is different from other creators. 

[newfoundmass]

After some of the discussion about Cloud storage in this thread and concerns over increasing costs, I laughed this morning when I got an email from Dropbox telling me that their price is in increasing by $20 a year. Granted they doubled the space from 1TB to 2TB, but still. 

[Emanuel]

I firmly believe and those manufacturing charts prove it to me that instead (external hard drives, more or less the same in these last three years and for data services they're increasing the sales, so?) larger storage will happen as cheaper as it gets for soon. Time to be optimistic, really. Only time for flash memory, that's all! : ) Other than that, well, I've just updated from 2TB to 10TB with x2 hard disks for EUR168 each, no more no less : -)

[Emanuel]

I stand corrected going even furthermore (once I can't edit anymore now my post above of about one hour ago):

...not three actually BUT in these last four years!

 

It is "no more or less"...

2018 got back to the same figures of 2015 for external category. And the forecast for the next couple of years keeps the status quo. That is, a period of six years! More than half of this last decade...

 

Where's the recession on manufacturing of this stuff then? *phew* : P Let's put such stress to rest, OK? : )

 

 

It is mandatory to know how to read numbers and charts or becomes just to trend 'fake news' yet again and those who believe so ; )

The only decreasing data to retain from there is the rise of mobile devices to also consider (side by side to the increasing of large storage facilities) hinted by the PC indicator stronger than the 'consumer electronics'. That is, with its unique fall behavior since the early beginning of the period face to face with any of the remaining ones. That's what pushes everything: mobile devices, not necessarily the cloud sector.

Corporate subdivision only follows the picture and obviously confirms that.

[Mokara]

12 hours ago, IronFilm said:

100 people streaming from one service needs less HDD storage than 100 people playing a movie locally from their own HDD

Most people are watching TV as well as streaming services however, and if you have a cable box you probably have a PVR inside it. That is pretty much the only thing which might be impacted by streaming, and the impact is probably very small considering that people will be doing both.

The changes the spindle manufacturers are talking about are driven by the move to SSDs on personal computers and the ready availability of individual high capacity drives. Storage requirements overall are not changing, if anything they are increasing. Even if you store your stuff on the cloud rather than a portable local disc, it still is stored on a HDD. But the HDDs in data centers have much larger capacity than the ones people use at home. Bigger HDDs = fewer HDDs = fewer spindles = depressed spindle manufacturers. That does not mean the sky is falling. The headline in the OP's link is misleading ….. it does not mean people are moving away from storage, it just means that there is less need for spindles from the guys who make spindles. Tough for them no doubt, but the demand for storage is still the same.

21 hours ago, Ty Harper said:

The shift to streaming is due in large part to a shift in how consumers are thinking about ownership. They no longer care as much about owning the thing (which is what was driving the hard drive market) --- they're cool with someone else having ownership (and worrying about storing the thing) while they pay a streaming subscription fee to listen, watch the thing. 

That is not what was driving the hard drive market.

[Emanuel]

Mobile world is what is driving the sales.

Inevitable from microelectronics and mobility times we all live in.

 

For some reason I have claimed for such market call and users' need since mid-noughties when RED popped up and very early then, promised the Scarlet. Although delivered with the 5DII to begin with. Mirrorless offer to follow. Smartphones later on, despite their tiny sensor size so far.

As well, the success of this forum is the finest example of this change for the camera realm. Andrew was very clever to take the train when it was ready to go from the station.

 

Since capture devices to sexuality... (only to mention that) we live in a hybrid world.

 

E : -)

[Ty Harper]

1 hour ago, Mokara said:

Most people are watching TV as well as streaming services however, and if you have a cable box you probably have a PVR inside it. That is pretty much the only thing which might be impacted by streaming, and the impact is probably very small considering that people will be doing both.

The changes the spindle manufacturers are talking about are driven by the move to SSDs on personal computers and the ready availability of individual high capacity drives. Storage requirements overall are not changing, if anything they are increasing. Even if you store your stuff on the cloud rather than a portable local disc, it still is stored on a HDD. But the HDDs in data centers have much larger capacity than the ones people use at home. Bigger HDDs = fewer HDDs = fewer spindles = depressed spindle manufacturers. That does not mean the sky is falling. The headline in the OP's link is misleading ….. it does not mean people are moving away from storage, it just means that there is less need for spindles from the guys who make spindles. Tough for them no doubt, but the demand for storage is still the same.

That is not what was driving the hard drive market.

But how can the demand for external hard drive storage be the same if the everyday consumer who is shifting to the cloud and streaming, doesn't have the same need for that type of storage anymore? 

[Parker]

I have unlimited Google Drive space through my old college .edu email (currently using around 6 TB). I'm not sure how many institutions have that kind of policy (my university will even create edu accounts for former students and alumni, for example my parents graduated in the early 1980s and I helped them set up new EDU accounts of their own, also with unlimited cloud storage space) plus, having an active .edu account can provide a lot of other online discounts and benefits  through services like  Unidays and B&H, etc. 

I'm not sure if that's possible for everyone, but a good option to check out if it is. I guess I'd be totally screwed if Google ever changed their policy tho ??

[Emanuel]

1 hour ago, Ty Harper said:

But how can the demand for external hard drive storage be the same if the everyday consumer who is shifting to the cloud and streaming, doesn't have the same need for that type of storage anymore? 

Which seems the demand for cloud services is actually overestimated as eventual external hard drive storage replacement. TV didn't replace Radio (E : -)

[Ty Harper]

25 minutes ago, Emanuel said:

Which seems the demand for cloud services is actually overestimated as eventual external hard drive storage replacement. TV didn't replace Radio either (E : -)

Maybe, but to me this is just an overall culture shift. Family photos being saved on phones and the cloud... music, tv/film being streamed. Those are the primary reasons consumers needed large amounts of hard drive storage. So how do any of those significant cultural shifts signal a robust consumer hard drive market moving forward?

[Emanuel]

The introduction of a newcomer only means something to vary, not necessarily to rule out the precedent technology. Unless when disruptive. Far away to be the case when the user access is subject to still depend on bandwidth and price ratio to only mention two variables.

Cultural shifts don't mean the replacement of technologies nor different needs. They just complement each other. Pretty plural in plain diversity and productive coexistence. The photographer didn't replace the painters, neither TV replaced Radio (E : -)

[Ty Harper]

20 minutes ago, Emanuel said:

The introduction of a newcomer only means something to vary, not necessarily to rule out the precedent technology. Unless when disruptive. Far away to be the case when the user access is subject to still depend on bandwidth and price ratio to only mention two variables.

Cultural shifts don't mean the replacement of technologies nor different needs. They just complement each other. Pretty plural in plain diversity and productive coexistence. The photographer didn't replace the painters, neither TV replaced Radio (E : -)

Oh I agree in theory that new tech can and should complement established tech (or replace it, depending on the circumstances) but what you're describing just doesn't sound like the world we actually live in, where planned obsolescence is an intrinsic part of most companies' dna. 

[Emanuel]

Well, photography to coexist with painting and TV with Radio actually make the topic move back to XIX and XX centuries, isn't it? ; ) In any case, we talk about the way industry is driving the storage sector with the advent of cloud services to become mainstream. These charts speak a bit if not much about it. Just not the manner a superficial view can wrongly tend to lead. That's the whole point as matter of fact, whether fits the 'planned obsolescence' you mention or not (E : -)

[Mokara]

22 hours ago, Ty Harper said:

But how can the demand for external hard drive storage be the same if the everyday consumer who is shifting to the cloud and streaming, doesn't have the same need for that type of storage anymore? 

Because people still have PVRs in their cable boxes? The amount of HDDs used to store owned movies is negligible. And if you are stealing them off the web you will still need to store them.

Computers still come with storage, what is different is that it is increasingly SOLID STATE STORAGE which does NOT use SPINDLES. Even some servers are moving over to SSDs for the speed since memory cost is relatively competitive now. The people predicting hard drive sales falls are SPINDLE MANUFACTURERS (you not see the connection?).

Obviously when the demand for 1TB HDDs in laptops etc falls due to manufacturers increasingly using SSDs instead, HARD DRIVE SALES FOR PCs WILL FALL. HDDs will still be used in server farms, but these are BIG drives, as opposed to the SMALL drives consumers are discarding IN FAVOR OF SDDs. Hence fewer hard drives spindles being sold. THAT IS WHAT THE OPs LINK WAS COMPLAINING ABOUT. Why is this so hard to comprehend? It has fuck all to do with streaming.

 

FFS

22 hours ago, Parker said:

I have unlimited Google Drive space through my old college .edu email (currently using around 6 TB). I'm not sure how many institutions have that kind of policy (my university will even create edu accounts for former students and alumni, for example my parents graduated in the early 1980s and I helped them set up new EDU accounts of their own, also with unlimited cloud storage space) plus, having an active .edu account can provide a lot of other online discounts and benefits  through services like  Unidays and B&H, etc. 

I'm not sure if that's possible for everyone, but a good option to check out if it is. I guess I'd be totally screwed if Google ever changed their policy tho ??

The cost of storage continually decreases, especially for solid state storage. Most of these changes are being driven by that, not usage patterns. HDDs will eventually become a thing of the past, just like rotary telephones (and DSLRs), and be completely replaced by solid state media.

[Ty Harper]

6 hours ago, Mokara said:

Because people still have PVRs in their cable boxes? The amount of HDDs used to store owned movies is negligible. And if you are stealing them off the web you will still need to store them.

Computers still come with storage, what is different is that it is increasingly SOLID STATE STORAGE which does NOT use SPINDLES. Even some servers are moving over to SSDs for the speed since memory cost is relatively competitive now. The people predicting hard drive sales falls are SPINDLE MANUFACTURERS (you not see the connection?).

Obviously when the demand for 1TB HDDs in laptops etc falls due to manufacturers increasingly using SSDs instead, HARD DRIVE SALES FOR PCs WILL FALL. HDDs will still be used in server farms, but these are BIG drives, as opposed to the SMALL drives consumers are discarding IN FAVOR OF SDDs. Hence fewer hard drives spindles being sold. THAT IS WHAT THE OPs LINK WAS COMPLAINING ABOUT. Why is this so hard to comprehend? It has fuck all to do with streaming.

 

FFS

The cost of storage continually decreases, especially for solid state storage. Most of these changes are being driven by that, not usage patterns. HDDs will eventually become a thing of the past, just like rotary telephones (and DSLRs), and be completely replaced by solid state media.

We're clearly interpreting the info differently. I don't disagree that SSD's will eventually replace HDDs as the primary storage option ---- but I'm in the market for 12TB's of storage right now (and I'm just a hobbyist), so whereas in the past I could've relied on consumer HDD options ---- there aren't a whole lot --- know why? Bcuz consumer demand for storage isn't growing like it used to --- particularly with respect to capacity. They aren't buying music anymore, ain't buying DVDs/blurays that they might want to digitize.... and they definitely aren't taking the bait on 4K and 8K offerings of those formats. If they still own a television, and pvr stuff... sure they got storage needs... but they erase those programs incrementally when they're maxing out of drive space. Also the average person that's watching pirated films has no desire to download anything (unless they're actual bootleggers).... they just stream that stuff... usually through one of those android boxes. But even if they do download, they probably delete it right after watching. Consumer demand for storage is still there ---- it's just not growing with respect to drive capacity. Which is why SSD's as a storage option will make sense for them way quicker than for us video hobbyists, cuz consumers are totally fine with a 2TB SSD. All that to say HDD's are still where it's at for hobbyists, and it looks like it'll be that way for a minute... which means all these shifts in consumer needs will probably impact hobbyists before SSDs save the day... whether it's by forcing us out of the consumer storage market to buy enterprise level HDD's (as I'm considering), or forcing us to be more conservative with our storage strategies. Just my perspective tho...

[Mokara]

In the past instead of that 12TB unit you would have bought a bunch of 2/3/4 TB units. So, by moving to the larger drive (since they are now affordable you don't need to build an array of smaller drives), you have reduced the number of drives you need by 3 - 6 times. Hence the number of drives sold is lower. That is one of the factors at play, the other being the movement to SSDs as system drives. Those two things (affordable large capacity HDDs for bulk storage, and affordable SSDs replacing system drives) account for the reduced overall numbers of HDD units being sold.

[Robert Collins]

On 6/5/2019 at 7:50 PM, Ty Harper said:

Looks like the consumer shift to streaming is having a major impact on the hard drive market (one major component supplier is already positioning itself away from the market) which will very likely in turn impact the price of hard drives in a negative way.

Personally, there's no way I'm putting my trust in a cloud service, so I guess I'll just have to be more thoughtful about my storage strategies and take whatever price increases might be coming down the pipe.

https://www.techspot.com/amp/news/79938-pc-hard-drive-shipments-could-fall-50-percent.html

I did a double take on this because I thought this thread might be 3 years old.

'Torrenting' as a percentage of total internet usage has been increasing since 2015 - precisely because of the rise of streaming services. 4 years ago Netflix had a virtual monopoly and so you could watch pretty much anything decent on the service. The rise of competitors - Prime, Disney, HBO, Apple etc - means now if you want to watch the best shows you either have to subscribe to half a dozen services, torrent or miss out.....

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3q45v/bittorrent-usage-increases-netflix-streaming-sites

[Kisaha]

7 hours ago, Robert Collins said:

I did a double take on this because I thought this thread might be 3 years old.

'Torrenting' as a percentage of total internet usage has been increasing since 2015 - precisely because of the rise of streaming services. 4 years ago Netflix had a virtual monopoly and so you could watch pretty much anything decent on the service. The rise of competitors - Prime, Disney, HBO, Apple etc - means now if you want to watch the best shows you either have to subscribe to half a dozen services, torrent or miss out.....

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3q45v/bittorrent-usage-increases-netflix-streaming-sites

My view about this is than in 2025 there will be fewer platforms amd eventually it will be just one including litteraly everything.

@Mokara before you didn't have 4K-6K-8K raw and 10bit and huge games and uncompressed audio e.t.c

In my case I have noticed that I buy the standard capacity of the time, which was 1GB a few years ago, then 2GB, 3GB, and now I am buying 4GB. They are equally filled with the junk or the masterpieces of the era (both mine or others).

For instance, if I want to download something that I do not have access in my country I choose the best quality I can find. 2 years ago 720p was more than enough. 4 years ago, even the screeners before the Oscars were "ok" to get the idea. Now, for some specific movies I am going more than 50-60GB.

Since late last year I started making 4K projects and using 10 bit files and raw and the such, so for a similar project of 3 years ago now I need a lot more space, and of course only locally.