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Note that the article is straight up lying about the price of HDD capacity, 12TB drives generally cost more per TB than lower capacity drives, the best capacity

Note that the article is straight up lying about the price of HDD capacity, 12TB drives generally cost more per TB than lower capacity drives, the best capacity deals are generally in the range 3 to 8 TB. Comparing cheapest to cheapest, tapes only go for around half the price of hard disks.

adrian_b 7y ago
Normal HDDs are at least 3 times the price of tapes. To reach only double price of tapes you must choose some super-ancient junk, e.g. 1 TB 3.5" HDDs, which are much slower than tapes and which require a huge size and weight for the same capacity as tapes. 12 TB HDDs have about the same volume as LTO-7 tapes (i.e. about the same volume as two 6 TB tapes), but they are much heavier. LTO-8 tapes have double capacity compared to LTO-7.
mxfh 7y ago
Dunno, if shucking is an option, external consumer WD drives are regularily available under EUR 200 for 10 TB, while bulk drives of same capacity or higher for dedicated storage use are at least 50% more expensive. In my experience this is a releatively new development, that those two markets diverged that much. 2015 and before bulk HDD where usually cheaper than external ones. If you do care about warranty you can just keep them in the external usb casing and enjoy having an abundance of power supplies and USB 3 cables. If it's 24/7 hot storage it also uses 50kWH per Year at 6W. That's also about 15EUR/Year minimum energy costs per drive. Me feeling is, that all HDD manufacterers are extracting as as much value from the market as they get away with (meaning having more of a smell of informal price fixing, then of free market) while they still can, before they will be made osolete to solid state storage in 5 years latest.
- NohatCoder 7y ago
  If we compare them to tapes, it doesn't seem fair that the hard disks should be kept spinning, booting them up on demand still gives you vastly lower latency than tapes. Me feeling is that the competition in the tape market is also a bit rusty, $3000 for a fancier VCR, what a steal! ;-)

adrian_b 7y ago

Normal HDDs are at least 3 times the price of tapes. To reach only double price of tapes you must choose some super-ancient junk, e.g. 1 TB 3.5" HDDs, which are much slower than tapes and which require a huge size and weight for the same capacity as tapes. 12 TB HDDs have about the same volume as LTO-7 tapes (i.e. about the same volume as two 6 TB tapes), but they are much heavier. LTO-8 tapes have double capacity compared to LTO-7.

mxfh 7y ago

Dunno, if shucking is an option, external consumer WD drives are regularily available under EUR 200 for 10 TB, while bulk drives of same capacity or higher for dedicated storage use are at least 50% more expensive. In my experience this is a releatively new development, that those two markets diverged that much. 2015 and before bulk HDD where usually cheaper than external ones. If you do care about warranty you can just keep them in the external usb casing and enjoy having an abundance of power supplies and USB 3 cables. If it's 24/7 hot storage it also uses 50kWH per Year at 6W. That's also about 15EUR/Year minimum energy costs per drive. Me feeling is, that all HDD manufacterers are extracting as as much value from the market as they get away with (meaning having more of a smell of informal price fixing, then of free market) while they still can, before they will be made osolete to solid state storage in 5 years latest.

NohatCoder 7y ago
If we compare them to tapes, it doesn't seem fair that the hard disks should be kept spinning, booting them up on demand still gives you vastly lower latency than tapes. Me feeling is that the competition in the tape market is also a bit rusty, $3000 for a fancier VCR, what a steal! ;-)