Seagate’s triple whammy: Disk numbers, costs, and flash
Peak disk has passed and Seagate has a triple problem set: disk build numbers; costs and pricing; and what to do about flash.
Revenues for Seagate’s second fiscal 2016 quarter, ended Jan 1, were $2.98bn, down 19.4 per cent on $3.7bn a year ago.
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theregister.co.uk...]
Had a surprise last night (working for a client) re: hard disks, pricing, capacity in that it has been a while since I was nutters about hardware. Back in the 1990s I ran a small shop that custom built computers until the margins re: parts became so thin that I transitioned away from that to software, networking and websites where the ROI was better served.
Yet, we do stay in touch with storage devices because that's where all the data and output (or sites) are stored. The surprise I had was a marked recent drop in spinning rust drives and an "average capacity/breakpoint cost" at 3tb when last year it was 2tb.
Building large array storage is getting cheaper, and redundancy (duplication in real time, not backups) is making more sense.
Meanwhile, if you don't have good backups (true mirror images) you might want to take a look at your local HD costs to see if you can get that set up. Also check on "per dozen" pricing. Even at these currently low numbers you can still get an additional discount for "volume".
