johnnyvolvo

Hard Disk Drives Losing Battle to Flash Memory

Storage needs are increasing exponentially with more and more people in essence "digitizing" their lives. Video and graphic images will drive the storage market. You may have a flash card in your camera - but you will store all those pics on a drive. Movies will eventually be digital instead of coming on a DVD - more storage needed.

Also as more people go online - the online companies will need to exponentially increase - storage. Businesses also produce volumes and volumes of material each year. They need mass storage because archival solutions will not allow them to do data mining and other essential processes.

I agree the netbook market - and eventually the portable desktop market will be dominated by flash - but drives will remain viable and a growth market for many years - unless they are supplanted by a new technology (always a possibility for any tech company). Flash drives will continue to get bigger and cheaper by evolution - and so will disk drives.

I have not analyzed the "sweet spots" (the capacities at which disk drive and flash manufacturers have the most sales volume, - and the points at which they make the most profit). Volume typically comes from lower capacity drives - profit from higher capacity drives.

Knowing that - as well as knowing how quickly those sweet spots are moving for both drive and flash manufacturers,and extrapolating where and when they will (eventually) converge will tell the real tale here. Your article needs another paragraph or two to be useful.