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Re: [OFFTOPIC] Mass storage prices and form factor (was: ISO to external SSD)

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Stefan Monnier writes:

> Peter Ehlert [2021-08-03 08:27:26] wrote:
> > On August 3, 2021 8:17:58 AM Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>  
> wrote:
> >>> Second, the price of spinning disks is such that it makes no
> >>> sense to buy anything smaller than 4TB, which will fit all this,
> >>> and 6-8 TB are often a reasonable idea even for single users.
> >> You seem to assume a 3½" form factor which either requires a "large"
> >> desktop or an external enclosure.
> > Not really. My HP z620 work station ain't huge.

[...]

> >> Personally I consider this form factor dead every since I bought my
> >> first 2TB 2½" disk.
> > If you use Lots of drives (4tb), and are on a limited budget, like me...  
> > The 3.5 form factor is more cost effective.
>
> That's why I wrote "personally".  AFAIK the proportion of computer users
> which "use lots of drives" is quite small.  Maybe it's higher among

Four internal drives here (2x3.5" HDD, 2x2.5" SSD), not sure if that counts  
as a lot.

> Debian users, admittedly, but still your original statement above lacks
> a qualification like "AFAIC" or "IMO" ;-)
>
> OK, to add actual info to this message, here's a quick look at today's
> lowest prices in my "usual" store:
>
>    2TB $ 64 3½  HDD             32 $/TB
>    3TB $ 65 3½" HDD             22 $/TB
>    4TB $104 3½" HDD             26 $/TB
>    6TB $139 3½" HDD (external)  23 $/TB
>    8TB $199 3½" HDD             25 $/TB
>   10TB $323 3½" HDD (external)  32 $/TB
>   12TB $339 3½" HDD (external)  28 $/TB
>
> I'm surprised at how stable the price per TB is over the 2-12 range.
> It used to be the case that HDD price's curve was not nearly as linear
> (which reflected the fact that production costs aren't (weren't?)
> proportional to the drive's capacity).
> I suspect that the profit margin varies widely over this spectrum.

Thank you for putting the numbers together. It is always nice to see some  
current statistics about it. From memory, 6-8T used to be the sweet spot.

>    2TB $ 60 2½" HDD (external)  30 $/TB
>    3TB $125 2½" HDD (external)  42 $/TB  (only "recertified" available)
>    4TB $114 2½" HDD (external)  29 $/TB
>    5TB $139 2½" HDD (external)  28 $/TB
>
> It's also interesting to see that the price per TB is about the same for
> 2½" HDD as for 3½" HDD, whereas it used to be significantly higher.
> [ And also that in the 2½" space, your best bet in $/GB is to buy
>   a drive+enclosure, which implies you don't really know what you're
>   getting other than the capacity of the drive.  :-(  ]
>
> That makes 3½" form factor even more dead than I thought (two 4TB 2½"
> drives should offer better performance than one 8GB 3½" drive and use
> less space, not sure about power consumption).

[...]

I still use and like the 3.5" drives mostly due to the following  
considerations:

 * It is easier to get 3.5" at 7200 rpm than 2.5".
   Faster rotation means faster access and this is usually where HDDs
   are very slow hence I do not want them to be even slower.

 * 3.5" drives are available with CMR even at high capacities like
   6T oder 8T. With 2.5" a limited and expensive selection of
   server drives offer 2T or 4T with CMR, whereas AFAIK all
   consumer-grade 2.5" hard drives above 1T are SMR drives. I am not
   sure if there are any 2.5" CMR hard drives (server or not) above 4T?

This means in terms of performance, it is quite possible for a single 3.5"  
drive to outperform two 2.5" ones (unless you are only doing sequential  
reads from two drives in parallel).

YMMV
Linux-Fan

--
öö

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Thread

ISO to external SSD Gunnar Gervin <dofeelok@gmail.com> - 2021-08-02 21:40 +0200
  Re: ISO to external SSD Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> - 2021-08-02 21:50 +0200
    Re: ISO to external SSD Gunnar Gervin <dofeelok@gmail.com> - 2021-08-03 14:20 +0200
      Re: ISO to external SSD Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> - 2021-08-03 17:10 +0200
        Re: ISO to external SSD Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2021-08-03 17:20 +0200
          Re: ISO to external SSD Peter Ehlert <pb21a@sdi-baja.com> - 2021-08-03 17:30 +0200
            [OFFTOPIC] Mass storage prices and form factor (was: ISO to  external SSD) Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2021-08-03 19:40 +0200
              Re: [OFFTOPIC] Mass storage prices and form factor (was: ISO to  external SSD) Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> - 2021-08-03 20:00 +0200
              Re: [OFFTOPIC] Mass storage prices and form factor (was: ISO to          external SSD) Linux-Fan <Ma_Sys.ma@web.de> - 2021-08-03 21:00 +0200
              Re: [OFFTOPIC] Mass storage prices and form factor (was: ISO to  external SSD) <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2021-08-03 21:20 +0200
                Re: [OFFTOPIC] Mass storage prices and form factor Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2021-08-03 23:30 +0200
          Re: ISO to external SSD Gunnar Gervin <dofeelok@gmail.com> - 2021-08-03 18:30 +0200
      Re: ISO to external SSD Polyna-Maude Racicot-Summerside <debian@polynamaude.com> - 2021-08-03 17:20 +0200
  Re: ISO to external SSD Polyna-Maude Racicot-Summerside <debian@polynamaude.com> - 2021-08-02 23:40 +0200

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