- Key vendors in the market include Seagate Technology PLC, Toshiba Corp. and Western Digital Corp.
London, 21 April 2014: A recent report by TechNavio, the independent tech-focused global research firm, shows the Global Hard Disk Drive (HDD) Market is faltering in the presence of newer technologies like solid state drives (SSDs) and cloud storage. The market is only expecting growth of 0.13 percent CAGR through 2018.
HDDs are comprised of one or more rotating disks, covered in magnetic material. While they are able to store a lot of data quite cheaply, they are seeing intense competition from SSDs and other flash-based technologies.
SSDs tend to be more expensive than HDDs, however the higher price is offset by benefits such as less power draw and nearly 300 times faster access time than HDDs.
Additionally, TechNavio has found consumers are shifting toward cloud-based systems for storage, negating the need for HDDs.
“The prevailing competition from the global tablet market is supplemented with the added advantage of the cloud-based storage service, posing a huge hurdle for the Global HDD market. This will result in a vast dent in the profits of the Global HDD market,” says Faisal Ghaus, Vice President of TechNavio Research.
However, according to TechNavio, a few trends are emerging that might offer some sustenance for the HDD market, including miniaturization of HDDs and the incorporation of drives with more storage capacity. Vendors are increasing the area density of HDDs, which leads to the reduction of form factors from 3.5 inch to 2.5 inch.
“HDDs are becoming smaller and denser, and have improved performance,” says Ghaus.
“For instance, the 500 GB HDD capacity has been increased to 640 GB, retaining the form factor of 3.5 inch. Similarly, the 320 GB HDD capacity has been increased to 375 GB, retaining the form factor of 2.5 inch.”
To determine the scenario for these vendors in the next 3-4 years, TechNavio analysts have conducted in-depth analysis of the impact of market drivers, challenges and trends featuring data on product segmentations, vendor shares, growth rate by revenue and an evaluation of the different buying criteria in the order of importance.
If you are interested in more information on this topic and our upcoming research on the Hard Disk Drive Market please send an e-mail to media@TechNavio.com
https://www.technavio.com/%3Cp%3EMedia%20Contact%3A%3C/p%3E%0A%0A%3Cp%3EJ…
