How much storage will there be on solid state hard drives in the year 2030? What about beyond 2030? Here's what we think.
Solid state storage has come a long way since its inception in the 1970s, and has rapidly evolved over the past few decades. With technological advancements and an ever-increasing demand for data storage, it is interesting to speculate how far solid state storage will get by 2030 in terms of megabytes and terabytes.
Storage in the year 2000
In the year 2000, solid state storage was in its infancy. The most commonly used storage devices were magnetic hard disk drives (HDDs) which had a storage capacity of around 40-80 gigabytes (GB).
Solid state drives (SSDs) were available, but were not widely used due to their high cost and limited storage capacity of around 4-8 GB.
Storage in the year 2010
By 2010, solid state storage had become more popular and affordable. SSDs had improved significantly in terms of capacity and performance, with storage capacities of around 128 GB becoming common.
However, HDDs still dominated the market due to their larger storage capacities of up to 2 terabytes (TB).
Storage in the year 2020
The year 2020 saw a significant shift in the storage market, with SSDs becoming the preferred storage option for most consumers and businesses. The cost of SSDs had decreased significantly, and their storage capacity had increased exponentially, with drives of up to 16 TB becoming available.
This was made possible by advances in flash memory technology and the use of multi-layer cell (MLC) and triple-level cell (TLC) technology.
Storage in the year 2030
Looking ahead to 2030, it is likely that solid state storage will continue to dominate the market. SSDs will become even more affordable and will have much larger storage capacities, with drives of up to 128 TB becoming a possibility. This will be made possible by the continued development of flash memory technology, the use of more advanced 3D NAND architectures, and the increasing use of technologies like non-volatile memory express (NVMe) and Storage Class Memory (SCM).
Solid state storage devices will also become more efficient in terms of power consumption, making them an attractive option for mobile and portable devices. The use of new materials and designs may also lead to faster read and write speeds, further improving the performance of SSDs.
Storage beyond 2030
Beyond 2030, the future of solid state storage is even more exciting. It is likely that we will see storage devices with capacities of several petabytes (PB), making it possible to store vast amounts of data in a single device. This will be made possible by the use of even more advanced 3D NAND architectures, and the development of new technologies like resistive random-access memory (RRAM) and phase-change memory (PCM).
In addition to their storage capabilities, solid state storage devices may also become more versatile, with the ability to serve as both storage and computing devices. This will be made possible by the use of new materials and designs, and the development of new processing technologies like quantum computing.
Conclusion
Solid state storage has come a long way since its inception of just a few GB, and is expected to continue to evolve rapidly in the coming years.
By 2030, it is likely that SSDs will have capacities of up to 128 TB, making them the preferred storage option for most consumers and businesses.
Beyond 2030, we may see storage devices with capacities of several petabytes, as well as new technologies that blur the line between storage and computing. The future of solid state storage is exciting, and we can expect to see even more rapid advancements in the years to come.
Costs will continue to be the same for more and more space over time as costs come down due to improvement in technology.
How much storage will solid state drives have in 2030 and beyond?
Online writer since 2008. I enjoy writing and have written nearly a thousand tech related articles about electric vehicles, software, tech companies, hardware, gaming, tech related products, and company developments in tech.
