2000s: Microdrives and SATA harddisks

Microdrive:

IBM introduced the 170Mb Microdrive in 1999. The platters were only 1 inch in diameter and could be plugged into the CompactFlash II slot. Hitachi (which had acquired IBMs hard-drive business in 2002) and Seagate began building drives using the same form factor. Apple used an embedded version of this drive in its iPod mini. By 2006, capacities increased to 8Gb but the technology has since been surpassed by SSD.

SATA:

The Seagate Barracuda ATA V drive was released in 2003 and started the new SATA connectivity, which used a serial interface. The earlier PATA used a parallel interface. This drive featured up to 2 60Gb platters for a total of 120Gb while costing only $170

10K performance:

The Western Digital Raptor drive was also released in 2003 and was developed for enterprise servers. However, the PC gaming enthusiasts quickly latched on to the drive’s high-speed capability. The platters spin at 10,000rpm versus the traditional 7200rpm drives. The Raptor remains one of the highest-performing mechanical drive on the market today. With the SSD replacing mechanical drives, the Raptor’s speedy drive remains popular for data-intensive workloads like video editing and 3D rendering.

World’s smallest drive:

The Toshiba MK2001MTN was announced in 2006 and was inducted into the Guinness World Records as the world’s smallest hard drive. It packed 4Gb in just 0.85 inch. This drive was used in mobile phones, cameras and digital media players.

2010s: Solid-state drives

Even though SSD drives were manufactured as early as 1976, it took 35 years for the drives to become mainstream. Samsung in-

The future

The current ‘monster’ drive is a 10Tb by Seagate. They are currently testing a 12Tb one based on helium technology, with positive results. Over the next 18 months, Seagate is planning to ship 14 and 16Tb drives. Although the market share for mechanical drives has dropped because of SSDs, traditional drives are still cheaper than SSDs. Also, demand for hard drives has increased in new areas such as surveillance. Seagate’s roadmap of 20Tb drives by the year 2020 is on course thus far. However, this might be impacted by recent SSD developments.

SSDs already have more capacity than hard drives, and this gap will continue to increase. Already 16Tb and 32Tb SSDs exist in a 2.5” form factor. Although much more expensive than hard drives per gigabyte, these will soon go to 64Tb and 128Tb drives. Prices should eventually go down for such drives and that can be expected by 2018 or 2019. At some point, SSDs should eventually take over traditional hard drives. Only price is limiting what SSD can do. Yet the faster they launch bigger drives, the cheaper they become, rending traditional hard drives perched on the edge of oblivion.

From the IBM 305 RAMAC in 1956 (see fig. 1) to the 32Tb SSD in 2016 (see fig. 2), 60 years are a long time in IT! Vincent Farrugia is a Technology and Security Manager at Deloitte Malta. For more information, please visit http://www2.deloitte.com/mt