The huge image: HDD shipments have been declining for the previous decade, with customers choosing flash-based storage increasingly attributable to its important pace and endurance enhancements. Mobile units profit tremendously from the area and energy financial savings SSDs supply, whereas the worth per gigabyte has dropped considerably.
According 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 put 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. Continuing shortages for different elements additionally hampered gross sales of HDD-equipped programs. Meanwhile, nearline arduous 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% |
| Total | 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. Total 3.5-inch desktop and shopper 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 2.5-inch HDD market noticed the very best decline, with shipments plummeting 40 p.c QoQ to about 11 million items. This ought to come as no shock, contemplating that laptops these days nearly completely ship with flash-based storage. Weakening demand within the retail sector additionally contributed massively to this discount, with 2.5-inch shopper digital shipments reportedly representing an insignificant fraction of the full because it solely serves area of interest classes.
Chia (a cryptocurrency that individuals can farm by allocating unused disk area) despatched HDD gross sales hovering a couple of 12 months in the past, little question contributing to the YoY drop we’re seeing at present.
In associated information, Microsoft is reportedly pushing OEMs to make use of solely SSDs for boot drives beginning subsequent 12 months.
