Flash memory: When will standard hard drives disappear?

Nearly 20 years ago, Seagate® and Hewlett-Packard® launched the first 2.1GB standard hard drives. Considered monstrous at the time, these hard drives were at the cutting edge of technology, offering more storage than ever before. Decades later, portable flash memory is available in sizes of 4 gigabyte (GB) to 340GB and larger.

Whether you're storing music files, photographs, videos or your thesis written in Microsoft Word®, flash memory has become a preferred alternative for transporting files and storing data. In fact, with some forms of flash memory steadily dropping in price, technology researchers are wondering when standard hard drives will disappear.

Flash memory advances

Secure digital high capacity (SDHC) cards for cameras, memory sticks for camcorders, the peanut-sized mini SDHC card inside your cellular phone and USB drives all utilize flash memory technology.

Five years ago, those same files were stored on your hard drive, and backups were often made to a CD-ROM or external hard drive. Saving files to CD-ROM was portable, yet risky, since a simple scratch can quickly destroy a CD-ROM and make it unreadable.

Consequently, flash memory has increased in popularity as memory size has increased, and the price of this portable technology has steadily decreased. The availability of portable memory allows consumers to take their files anywhere without transporting a personal computer or laptop.

For example, USB drives, also known as thumb drives, come in a variety of sizes that fit easily in a backpack, purse or briefcase. You can even find promotional items featuring a tiny drive stored within a credit card sized case for easy transportation, and keychain memory holders in the form of characters like penguins or Hello Kitty®.

Flash memory vs. hard drives

With the October 2010 release of the new Apple MacBook Air®, the traditional hard drive was replaced with a flash memory hard drive available in sizes of 64GB to 256GB. This technology is referred to as a "solid state" hard drive because the components do not contain any moving parts like a standard hard drive. Although this advancement in technology could have indicated standard hard drives would soon be extinct, there are still a number of advantages for keeping an internal hard drive.

Standard drives utilize the power from your computer to run a motor that turns platters, or magnetic disks, made of numerous sectors. Data is stored in the sectors by magnetic charge at a write speed of approximately 300 mega bytes per second (MBps). In comparison, flash memory cards with storages sizes of 120GB write at 120MBps. Although data is stored to flash memory with an electrical charge, the power consumption of a flash memory device is much lower than a standard hard drive. Plus, unlike the hard drive attached permanently to your motherboard, flash memory can travel with you from school to home or to work.

The portable advantage of flash memory may also be a disadvantage. As flash memory cards are traded between cameras, camcorders and inserted over and over again into a PC for uploading data, the cards require gentle caring. Thumb drives can get crushed beneath a textbook, or flash memory cards might be left out of a protective case, harming the reader at the end of the card. With the advancement of portable technology comes the realization that flash memory is convenient, but also more fragile than standard hard drive technology. However, internal or external solid state drives using flash memory are built with a tougher exterior.

In fact, occupations that often take a laptop or portable technology into the field might find solid state hard drives more appealing. Without moving parts to possibly get damaged in the field, solid state drives offer a rugged alternative. Those working construction, for example, might utilize flash memory internal or external drives for their rugged design.

Currently, consumers are still purchasing laptops and desktop computers with standard hard drives, but using flash memory for transporting files and for use in digital devices like cameras and cellular phones. Even with a decrease in price in flash memory, standard hard drives still boast larger memory capacities, faster write performance and proven reliability. Although flash memory is portable and convenient, standard hard drives will likely remain a component in desktop computers and laptops for many more years.

References

Pfohl, Bill. (2010). Netbook or laptop? National Association of School Psychologists, 38(6): 44.