Seagate Technology's introduction of a super-slim hard disk drive (HDD) could help the HDD industry stave off the incursion of solid-state drives (SSDs) in the notebook and tablet PC markets.
"Although shipments of SSDs for notebooks will be miniscule compared to HDDs during the next few years, the solid state drives are shaving off points of market share that are critical to maintaining the growth of the hard drive business," said Fang Zhang, analyst. "Furthermore, SSDs are universally employed in media tablets, which are eating into the sales of notebook and netbook PCs. Seagate's new Momentus Thin HDD represents an attempt by the hard drive industry to answer the challenge of SSDs in notebooks – and even in media tablets – by undercutting the cost of SSDs while providing higher densities."
SSD shipments in notebooks will rise to 16.8 million units in 2015, up from 4.7 million in 2010. This will represent only a single-digit percentage of the notebook storage market compared to HDDs through the year 2015.
However, this small percentage is impacting the growth of the notebook HDD market. The notebook HDD market is set to expand at a 9.7% CAGR from 2010 to 2015. The combined market for HDDs and SSDs will rise at a CAGR of 10.2%. This indicates the solid-state drives will shave off half a percentage point of growth from the notebook HDD market during the five year period.
The rising sales of tablets could have an even bigger impact on notebook HDD sales. Tablets, which employ flash memory for storage, are expected to have a negative impact on sales of notebooks, and thus the HDDs used in them.
Seagate's Momentus Thin HDD could find acceptance in netbook and notebook computers, preventing SSDs from making further inroads. However, the near term opportunity for these drives in tablets is limited. HDD-based models are expected to account for 2% or less of the total tablet market in 2012.