The next advance on HDDs literally came last year. 20tb+ drives are available at ever decreasing prices these days, after being stalled at 16/18tb for a good few years.
They’ve been out for a while, but it’s the same SMR tech. HAMR/MAMR are just starting to get going that will enable the next leap. But they’re not shipping in volume and reliability isn’t yet known. It’ll be a bit before you see them in widespread use.
The HAMR/MAMR are exactly what I’m talking about. It is obviously unproven, but you can get new 20/22tb CMR HDDs now for 17.5¢ per GB very regularly, not counting sales. They’re what I’m currently running, and the normal price has dropped something close to 20% in the last year alone.
HAMR is still not out, but will be 30+TB. We’ve had 20+TB drives for a long time. They’ve been plateaud there for a while.
Price per GB hasn’t really been coming down much on CMR/SMR.
Which was my point. Until HAMR is in use and at mass production, storage costs haven’t really come down.
