Mechanical hard drives will they be the thing of the past

[Tony_photoplus]

This is just for general discussion as I think its about time the mechanical hard drive should be a thing of the past shortly. Just like oil should have been a thing of the past a decade ago (oops now, now no pedestal talk). Often I here of problem and have tried to resolve problems for people on collapsed hard drives. Its not surprising they don't have a long shelf life when you see all hose bearing and mechanical parts that eventually breakdown. With the onset of memory sticks surely this is the future for keeping our the OS on our computers. I am out of touch with many of the developments these days and this maybe in the pipeline. I am sure you will update my information that my pea brain can assimilate.

[miketoll]

I think I read somewhere that flash drives are now available but are small and no doubt expensive per GB as all new technology always is. No doubt somebody else will know more.

[sassan]

With terabyte hard drives not only readily available, but so cheap now a days, it seems very difficult for flash memories to play a realistic storage role. But then as an OS only or sensitive compartment like pen devices, they have their place and room to grow.

And yes "In moving parts we don't trust". HD, floppy drives, optical drives are the parts of computer to be blamed with every failure. Chips, mother board, ram are the last things to check. The only exception in this rule is video cards that do fail often, may be because of those overclocked etc etc and the resultant internal heat and vital need to the cooling device like fan (Again a moving part) that cause their vulnerability.

[Christine]

My Memory.co.uk is selling 4GB pen storage for £17.good value.

[Canis Vulpes]

I think the hard drive is here to stay, for the next 10 years at least. We may see operating systems on flash memory and a greater penetration of this technology once they get higher capacity for lower price. With lower hard disk pricing and greater capacities we might see RAID arrays being commonplace to reduce vulnerability.

Incidentally at home I have never had a hard drive fail in 18 years! (obviously not the same one!)