The article has no discussion of "disruption", when HDD vs. SDD looks like a classic case of it. The key empirical data of "The Innovators Dilemma" (which coine

The article has no discussion of "disruption", when HDD vs. SDD looks like a classic case of it. The key empirical data of "The Innovators Dilemma" (which coined the term "disruptive technology") was on the evolution of the HDD market. The article's analysis is correct - for today. It doesn't take into account the trajectory of improvements: all three technologies are improving (HDD, STEC and thumb drives) at a greater rate than the need for those improvements. Although HDD will still be better for some features, the other technologies will be adequate for the user need for those features - and will supply other valued benefits, that HDD lacks. Specifically: (1). USB flash drives will eventually have enough capacity for most needs - while staying at about $20. HDD will have much more capacity but it's not needed, and it simply can't match the per-unit price. (2). STEC will eventually get cheap enough for most needs - but keep the high performance. HDD will be even cheaper but it's not needed, and it simply can't match the performance. HDD will still have advantages that make it preferable for some usages - for one thing, I think it will probably become the new archive tape. It has cheap capacity and fast sequential writes and reads (I saw two brands of 500GB USB HHD for backup today in a mainstream retail outlet (post office), for about $150 AUD). And perhaps new approaches will become more popular, that fit this well - such as journaling file-systems. If capacity becomes cheap enough, why not store everything and never delete? (like Gmail).