The massive image: HDD shipments have been declining for the previous decade, with shoppers choosing flash-based storage an increasing number of on account of its vital velocity and endurance enhancements. Cell gadgets profit tremendously from the area and energy financial savings SSDs provide, whereas the worth per gigabyte has dropped considerably.
In response to a brand new report by Trendfocus, worldwide HDD shipments dropped to roughly 45 million items within the second quarter, a 33 p.c decline YoY. To place this into perspective, HDD distributors shipped over 650 million items in 2010, or about 162 million per quarter on common.
Demand for efficiency enterprise HDDs dipped barely to round 2.5 million items as OEMs reportedly carried over stock from the earlier quarter. Persevering with shortages for different parts additionally hampered gross sales of HDD-equipped techniques. In the meantime, nearline exhausting drive shipments held basically flat at about 19 million items for the quarter.
| Vendor | HDDs shipped (million items) | QoQ change | YoY change | Market share |
| Seagate | 19.80 – 20.60 | -13.8 – -10.4% | -29.7% – -26.9% | 44% |
| Toshiba | 8.00 – 8.60 | -20.2% – -14.3% | -42.8% – -38.5% | 18% |
| WDC | 16.50 – 17.30 | -16.5% – -12.4% | -34.6% – -31.4% | 37% |
| Whole | 44.30 – 46.50 | -16.0% – -11.9% | -34.2% – -31.0% |
On the buyer aspect, the state of affairs seems to be far bleaker. Whole 3.5-inch desktop and client electronics HDD shipments fell by over 30 p.c QoQ to roughly 13 million items. Trendfocus famous considerably weakened demand for the surveillance, PC, and retail segments.
The two.5-inch HDD market noticed the very best decline, with shipments plummeting 40 p.c QoQ to about 11 million items. This could come as no shock, contemplating that laptops these days nearly solely ship with flash-based storage. Weakening demand within the retail sector additionally contributed massively to this discount, with 2.5-inch client digital shipments reportedly representing an insignificant fraction of the entire because it solely serves area of interest classes.
Chia (a cryptocurrency that folks can farm by allocating unused disk area) despatched HDD gross sales hovering a few yr in the past, little doubt contributing to the YoY drop we’re seeing at this time.
In associated information, Microsoft is reportedly pushing OEMs to make use of solely SSDs for boot drives beginning subsequent yr.