Under market pressure, the development of mechanical hard disks may be difficult to continue

Solid-state drives are becoming more and more popular due to their fast read and write speeds, small size, and low noise. Storage manufacturers that mainly produce mechanical hard drives are in a cold winter. Seagate, HGST, and Toshiba all seem to be having a hard time.

Seagate shuts down factories and R&D

Seagate is having a hard time. After closing its Suzhou factory in January, its operating conditions do not seem to have improved much. Last week, it also quietly closed its HDD R&D center in South Korea.

It is reported that Seagate's HDD R&D center in Korea was established less than 4 years ago, mainly to research 2.5-inch hard disks suitable for notebooks. However, as the installation rate of solid-state hard disks in notebooks has increased rapidly, mechanical hard disks have been increasingly suppressed. So giving up seems to be a good choice. As the market demand for solid-state hard disks continues to increase, it is believed that Seagate will continue to reduce its investment in mechanical hard disks.

Toshiba no longer develops new 15,000 rpm products

Seagate is not doing well, and other mechanical hard drive manufacturers are certainly not doing much better.

According to Golem, Toshiba is no longer considering launching new 15K HDD products. The so-called 15K HDD is a 15,000 rpm mechanical hard drive. This high speed is supposed to be a product that takes both speed and capacity into consideration, but it cannot keep up with the development of solid-state drives and the market's fickleness.

Although Toshiba has temporarily given up its 15,000 rpm mechanical hard disk products, it continues to invest in 7,200 rpm and 10,000 rpm products. The 10,000 rpm products in particular have good speeds and can reach a maximum capacity of 1.8TB, which still has a lot of room for improvement.

HGST's Western Digital is already heading towards SSD

The only other major manufacturer of mechanical hard drives left is HGST.

I personally like HGST very much. It is not only cheap but also has a low failure rate. It is a cost-effective and reliable choice. At present, HGST continues to invest in the research and development and manufacturing of mechanical hard drives.

However, Western Digital, which dominates HGST, has entered the solid-state drive market after acquiring SanDisk. The two major series of green and blue disks are no longer exclusive to mechanical hard drives. I think other series of products will be launched soon.

From this perspective, HGST's prospects are somewhat worrying.

The road ahead is still unclear

Consumers' choices are mostly rational. The advantage of SSDs now lies more in performance, while the storage unit price of mechanical hard disks far exceeds that of SSDs. Therefore, the survival space of mechanical hard disks has only been partially occupied by solid-state drives.

As for the future development, it is not clear now. Especially with the recent surge in SSD prices, the unit price of storage has been raised again. It is particularly clear whether the advantages of mechanical hard disks will be suppressed in the future.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.