History 2000: Chip Shortages for HDDs

The gigabyte per disk death March continues, said Trendfocus in its most recent Executive Brief released at the end of last August.

Now that most HDD companies are starting to ship 20GB per disk 5,400rpm products, the HDD industry is maintaining its 100+%age areal density growth rate.

7,200rpm products are also ramping into production, led by Western Digital but sure to be followed within weeks by others.

Unfortunately, there is once again little time-to-volume advantage that any HDD company will realize, as all suppliers are shifting to 20GB per disk models within weeks of each other. With user storage needs still lagging, watch for increasing numbers of single-surface drives.

In 2000, well over a million single-surface drives were ship,, doubling the figure in 4Q99. 10GB is a nice round number for entry-level PCs, particularly when HDD companies are floating sub-$60 prices in 2000.

What will happen to 30GB per disk programs? Probably not much. There may be some nominal activity at that capacity point, but clearly HDD firms are planning the next jump to 40GB per disk in 2001.

Assuming suppliers stay on revised schedules – with 60GB per disk programs expected in 2H01 – this further accelerates the areal density growth rate to nearly 200%.

What happened to the notion that areal density growth will slow in 2001? 20GB per disk programs have hardly been a seamless step for both HDD and component firms.

Media companies have seen significant process yield reductions and are being compelled to upgrade equipment to CVD-like carbon deposition.

Head firms have also struggled with the transition.

If it was harder than normal at 20GB per disk, can we expect the component supply base to reach 40GB per disk by April 2001? Glass substrate transition?

IBM’s well-chronicled troubles with its 10,000rpm Discovery program and delays in 20GB per disk desktop models certainly cast a pall over the incursion of glass substrates into mainstream applications.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 153 on October 2000 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.