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back to article Data centre disk use is spinning down – Wikibon report

Decades of disk domination are coming to a close: Wikibon sees flash replacing disk entirely for primary data storage enterprise and hyper-scale cloud data centres over the next ten years. Disk will still be used as the cheapest and fastest – for the price – bulk-capacity media for archival and other low-access rate data. The …

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  1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

    Nice to see Wikibon more or less in line with my own thoughts on the matter. All companies having a "Tier 0" flash tier by 2020 that handles potentially up to 50% of workloads that would normally be considered "Tier 1". By 2025ish the whole of Tier 1 moved to Flash (or a post-flash technology).

    I think it's possible we'll be able to build enough foundries to handle that.

    It's where people start saying stupid things like "nearline storage will be replaced by flash" or "Tier 1 will be all flash within the next [insert very short timeframe here]" that I start getting tetchy. No, we damned well don't have the fab capacity for either of those scenarios.

    I don't think nearline storage will ever be replaced by flash. It will probably take a post-flash technology to do the job. Meanwhile, Tier 0 applications will be on post-flash technologies by the time we've moved "all" Tier 1 applications to flash (2025ish).

    Tier 2 and lower applications will still likely be on hybrid storage for a long time to come.

    2 0 Reply
  2. Rob Isrob

    What about total PB?

    Wait a second...

    Some of us are paying attention out here, by the way.

    What about this, doesn't HD growth still outpace SSD in the future (see chart in link below):

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/09/no_flash_datacentre_takeover/

    Is it no accident WikiBon study doesn't touch on total PB on the floor and ratios SSD<->HD?

    0 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What about total PB?

      Nope, the future got here early. I sell storage for a living and it's rapidly getting to the point where I can't even give away spinning rust but SSD appetite seems endless. One big bonus to SSD is the "one pool to rule them all" management structure. It really resonates with customers.

      0 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Useless graph

    This graph needs a log scale on the vertical axis.

    Everything looks the same if it all looks like zero. But maybe flash will still be 10 times as expensive as disk - and maybe that will still matter, since the volume of data we store will have gone up by a correspondingly huge factor as well.

    2 0 Reply
    1. DavCrav
      Reply Icon

      Re: Useless graph

      "This graph needs a log scale on the vertical axis.

      Everything looks the same if it all looks like zero. But maybe flash will still be 10 times as expensive as disk - and maybe that will still matter, since the volume of data we store will have gone up by a correspondingly huge factor as well."

      I read that graph as saying "Look! A graph to prove my point! Since I have graphs I can't be wrong!"

      1 0 Reply
  4. Bob H

    In the grand scheme of things most companies don't generate PB of data and capacities are generally more boring than we expect. The idea that capacities would grow exponentially is a little flawed.

    0 0 Reply
  5. ntevanza

    It's not about the hardware.

    It's not about the hardware.

    It's not about the hardware.

    It's not about the hardware.

    1 0 Reply
  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You'll still be buying spinning...

    Because no one is going to invest a $trillion to go and build sufficient flash capacity ijn the next 10 years.

    Thus, flash will reach a base price based on supply-demand and the remainder will be satisfied with spinning rusty stuff.

    0 1 Reply

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