HDDs are enjoying a mini-renaissance

Date:
Tue, 17 Aug 2021 22:33:08 +0000

Description:
Despite the prevalence of SSDs, demand for HDDs continues to grow in the data center and enterprise markets.

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Despite fact that most laptops and desktop PCs now ship with solid state drives ( SSDs ), hard disk drives ( HDDs ) saw a resurgence in sales during the second quarter of this year.

According to a new report from Trendfocus , Seagate, Toshiba and Western Digital shipped a record of 350.7 exabytes of HDD storage during Q2 2021. However, while Seagate retained the top spot, Western Digital almost managed to catch up with more than nine percent quarter over quarter growth.

A total of 67.6m HDDs were shipped during the second quarter of 2021
according to Trendfocus' data though Nidec , which is the world's largest independent producer of hard drive motors, estimates that the industry
shipped 64m units during the second quarter though the difference between
both companies' figures is currently hard to explain. We've built a list of the best external hard drives available These are the best portable SSDs on the market Also check out our roundup of the best rugged hard drives

One possible explanation is due to the fact that two out of the three largest HDD suppliers do not publish detailed unit shipments while only one publishes exabyte shipments according to Tom's Hardware . HDD resurgence

When it comes to the number of HDDs shipped during Q2, Seagate shipped 28.17m while Western Digital came close to its biggest rival in the space with 25.4m units shipped and Toshiba shipped 13.98m. As a result Seagate has a 41
percent market share followed by Western Digital with 37 percent and Toshiba at 20 percent.

In a press release detailing how Toshiba's nearline HDDs were able to set new records in Q2, VP at Trendfocus John Chen provided further insight on why demand for HDDs rose last quarter, saying:

"Demand for HDDs, specifically Nearline HDDs, have been on an upward trend
due to strong cloud and OEM demand, while the initial launch of the Chia cryptocurrency fueled new incremental channel requirements.

Although the storage-based cryptocurrency Chia helped increase demand somewhat, nearline and enterprise HDD demand was actually responsible for increased shipments of HDDS during the second quarter. We've also featured
the best cloud storage

Via Tom's Hardware



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/hdds-are-enjoying-a-mini-renaissance/


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