GIANT
Learning Storage Performance
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[*] Mobile 2.5-inch 4200 RPM ATA/SATA: New models Will cease to be introduced beyond the end of 2006.
[*] Mobile 2.5-inch 5400 RPM ATA/SATA: New models Will continue to be introduced until at least 2010; 240 GB models should be introduced late-2006/early-2007.
[*] Mobile 2.5-inch 7200 RPM ATA/SATA: New models Will continue to be introduced beyond 2010; 240 GB models should be introduced in early-2007.
[*] Desktop 3.5-inch 5400 RPM ATA/SATA: As of 2005, this class of desktop drive is definitely a thing of the past -- no manufacturer has any plans to introduce new 5400 RPM drives for desktop usage ever again.
[*] Desktop 3.5-inch 7200 RPM ATA/SATA: New models Will continue to be introduced beyond 2010; 640 GB models should be introduced mid-2006, 1 TB models should be introduced mid-2007.
[*] Desktop 3.5-inch 7200 RPM ATA/SATA: New models Will continue to be introduced beyond 2010; 640 GB models should be introduced mid-2006, 1 TB models should be introduced mid-2007.
[*] Enterprise 2.5-inch 10000 RPM SCSI/SAS/F-C: New models Will continue to be introduced until at least 2010; 150 GB models should be introduced late-2006; 300 GB models should be introduced late-2007.
[*] Enterprise 2.5-inch 15000 RPM SCSI/SAS/F-C: New models Will continue to be introduced until at least 2010; this class of drive debuts with 36 GB models in late-2006; 73 GB models should be introduced mid-2007.
[*] Enterprise 3.5-inch 10000 RPM SCSI/SAS/F-C (SATA?): New models Will continue to be introduced until at least 2008; 450 GB models should be introduced early-2007.
[*] Enterprise 3.5-inch 15000 RPM SCSI/SAS/F-C: New models Will continue to be introduced until at least 2008; 300 GB models should be introduced mid-2006; 450 GB models should be introduced mid-2007.
[*] Enterprise Near-Line 3.5-inch 7200 RPM SATA, FATA (SAS?): New models Will continue to be introduced until at least 2008; 640 GB models should be introduced late-2006, 1 TB models should be introduced late-2007.
TRENDS:
MOBILE: The trends are there are no surprises, as everyone who is familiar with the notebook computer market can tell you that 4200 RPM is as good as dead -- even now, 5400 RPM has quickly become the new baseline standard for hard drive storage, and 7200 RPM is becoming common.
DESKTOP: More of the same here. The parallel ATA hard drive will begin its already-forecasted major nosedive in 2006 as storage in new computers; SATA will be king. SATA CD/DVD drives should finally start appearing in significant numbers as well in 2006.
ENTERPRISE: High performance 3.5-inch form factor hard drive storage will apparently be seeing it's final chapter written before it's replaced by 2.5-inch high performance hard drive storage (probably right around 2009). What will hasten it's departure will be 3.5-inch near-line hard drive storage, as "enterprise storage" will largely begin to follow a two-tiered storage model, where large voluminous mirrored RAID-6 arrays will consist of 7200 RPM drive mechanisms with storage capacities of somewhere around 1 TB each will operate separately from higher performance storage arrays consisting of lower-capacity but higher-performing 2.5-inch drive mechanisms. The 2.5-inch enterprise 15000 RPM hard drive will finally make its debut in 2006.
NOTES:
No word on any sort of 10000 RPM 3.5-inch SATA timeline (i.e. -- Western Digital).
Also, no word on 2.5-inch SATA Desktop and Enterprise hard drives -- I know these are definitely in the works (some Enterprise SATA drives already announced by Fujitsu). It will likely turn out that Mobile hard drive models will simply get re-badged as "Desktop" models, but with a firmware revision to eliminate some of the performance-robbing power saving characteristics specific to mobile computing. Enterprise models would likely get a firmware revision to makes them play friendly with RAID environments and come along with an extra allocation of spare sectors. It's highly likely that all 2.5-inch SATA Desktop and Enterprise hard drives with spin at 7200 RPM.
And, for what it's worth, expect to see a major push of 10 Gb/s Ethernet in 2007 in the commercial space. We should finally see a precipitous price drop for 10-GbE starting in 2007, with 10-GbE even showing up integrated on many server-class mobos (once we have microprocessors, front-side busses, and integrated TCP/IP offload engines that can deliver that level of I/O throughput). I would expect to also see a Battle Royale between Fibre-Channel technologies and the less-expensive iSCSI / IP-SAN technologies at that point, with iSCSI / IP-SANs making huge gains across the board as 10-GbE rolls out in quantity.
