Will NAND make HDDs Obsolete?

NAND (short for "Not AND") is a type of non-volatile storage technology that is commonly used in solid-state drives (SSDs), memory cards, and USB flash drives. It has several advantages over traditional hard disk drives (HDDs) – lesser physical space (which enables larger storage), faster read and write speeds, lower power consumption, and better durability. These factors eventually lead to lowering the total cost of ownership (TCO).?

In addition, NAND has lower latency. As the drive gets bigger and bigger, data gets bigger and bigger. We need a technology that drives the lowest amount of latency into the system, and NAND fits in neatly with this requirement.

These benefits often make us think that NAND-based Flash storage has the potential to completely replace hard drives.?

While NAND has made significant inroads in the storage market, there are several limitations:??

• Lower endurance: NAND has relatively low endurance compared to HDDs. NAND cells can only be written to a limited number of times before they start to degrade. This makes them less suitable for applications that require a lot of writing, such as servers and databases.
• Higher cost: Though the latest NAND technology (QLC and 3D NAND) provide larger storage capacity with lesser storage density, the cost difference between HDD and Flash is 4x to 5x.?
• Newer data types: Data reduction can play a bigger role in making Flash cheaper. For example, data reduction with VDI and virtualization is almost 10:1. But the data types that are emerging now don't reduce that well, especially unstructured content such as media.

As NAND technology is constantly improving, it is possible that it could eventually replace hard drives in some applications. For example, NAND-based SSDs are already being used in servers and enterprise environments, as well as primary storage devices in laptops and desktop computers.?

However, it is unlikely that NAND will completely replace hard drives in the near future, as the lower cost and higher storage density of HDDs make them a better option in many situations.?

References

Flash storage debate heats up over QLC SSDs vs. HDDs.

NAND Flash technology and Solid-State Drives (SSDs).?