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But ultimately, higher-density manufacturing technology allows for the newer product to reach lower floor prices.Īll in all, the HDD $/GB equation has fallen by 87.4% since 2009, even taking into account the two/year "blip" from the 2011 Taiwan floods, but most of that fall has happened since 2017. Klein also noted how improvements in HDD densities usually move the price downward: from 12TB to 14TB, and 14TB to 16TB, the newer, higher-capacity HDDs are usually introduced at higher price points than the previous generation products. By 2017, with the advent of 8TB HDDs, that cost had fallen by 73% down to $0.03/GB in the intervening years and with no small thanks to ever denser HDDs culminating in the 16TB HDDs the company currently acquires, Backblaze has almost doubled its density/dollar equation by reaching $0.014/GB. At that time, Backblaze's HDD acquisitions were averaging out at a storage cost of around $0.114/GB (for capacities between 1TB and 2TB per HDD). With 253,500 HDDs bought throughout its lifetime, Backblaze certainly has the numbers from which to weave a story.Īndy Klein analyzed Backblaze's HDD purchases throughout the time the company has been operating, starting in 2009. As least, that's the story according to Backblaze's Andy Klein, the company's Principle Storage Cloud Storyteller. While that may sound like a self-fulfilling prophecy, Backblaze goes further than simply noting a well-known HDD pricing trend: the company expects consumers to be able to purchase storage space at a previously unseen $0.01 per GB ratio as soon as 2025. Cloud storage specialist Backblaze expects the downward price trend for HDDs to continue.
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