[News] SSD vs. HDD: Battle Gets Underway Again

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The sweeping AI wave not only keeps AI chips in the market spotlight but also ushers in a new round of opportunities for the memory market. Recently, Citibank announced that SSD will replace HDD in the AI field, citing SSD’s faster speed, which are more suitable for AI training. It is reported that data centers of top US tech companies are shifting from HDD to enterprise SSD.

From consumer electronics to enterprise markets, and now in the era of AI, the battle between SSD and HDD is underway once again .

• Can SSD Fully Replace HDD?

Industry sources point out that SSD surpass HDD by nearly 10 times in terms of access speed, while HDD boasts the advantage of lower cost.

According to a previous report from Nikkei Asia, in recent years, as NAND Flash prices declined in a downward cycle, the cost gap between SSD and HDD has begun to narrow, enabling SSD to gradually replace HDD in some fields. For instance, in consumer PC storage devices below 2TB, HDD have been phased out and replaced by SSD.

This seems to indicate that SSD has significantly outpaced HDD, but it is still difficult to say that SSD will completely replace HDD. After all, compared to consumer products, data centers have higher performance requirements for SSD. Furthermore, from a cost perspective, enterprises face significant pressure if they want to fully substitute SSD for HDD.

The current AI boom has provided opportunities for the development of both HDD and SSD, with a surge in demand for high-capacity products leading to price increases.

Industry sources reveal that HDD manufacturers reduced supply due to poor market conditions last year. With the arrival of the AI wave, supply of HDD outbalanced demand in 2H23, driving prices higher. From 3Q23 to 1Q24, HDD prices have increased by 10-20% overall. The latest reports show that Western Digital has recently notified customers of continuous price increases for HDD products. Industry sources expect HDD market prices to continue to rise in 2Q24, with increases ranging from 5% to 10%.

Likewise, SSD market is also facing supply shortages, especially in the enterprise SSD segment. TrendForce predicts a strong increase of about 13-18% in NAND Flash contract prices in 2Q24, with enterprise SSD contract prices expected to increase by 20-25% QoQ, representing the highest among all product lines.

At present, SSD and HDD are expected to coexist and progress together. However, looking ahead to the future, some memory manufacturers hope that SSD can continue to advance and even replace HDD.

In 2023, Shawn Rosemarin, Vice President of Research and Development Department of Pure Storage, stated that HDD would be completely phased out within 5 years. HDD consume too much power; 3% of global electricity used for data centers, and one-third of this power consumption comes from storage systems, the majority of which are mechanical hard drives. The cost difference in operating such large-scale deployments is striking. If the storage device is shifted to SSD, power consumption will be reduced by 80-90%.

However, HDD manufacturers have countered this statement. Rainer Kaese, Senior Manager of HDD Business Development Department at Toshiba, believes that HDD will continue to exist for some time. In the long run, they will continue to be cheaper than SSD, and data center engineers will develop more efficient HDD to meet stricter power consumption requirements.

The debate between these two sides reveals the respective strengths and weaknesses of SSD and HDD. As manufacturers continue to enhance performance, reduce costs, and lower power consumption, the competition between SSD and HDD is expected to continue in the future.

Read more

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(Photo credit: Western Digital)