The Week In Storage: WD Buys SD, Drops Anyway; NAND Boom Or Bust

[Guest]

Samsung outed the world's most capacious MicroSD card, and Phison is building up a NAND stockpile as it predicts a looming NAND drought.

The Week In Storage: WD Buys SD, Drops Anyway; NAND Boom Or Bust : Read more

 

[gravitybell07]

Forgive my ignorance, but why do two American companies need Chinese approval for the merger?

 

[epobirs]

Forgive my ignorance, but why do two American companies need Chinese approval for the merger?

Because both of them have so much of their operations in China that a merger is going to affect stuff the Chinese government cares about, such as employment. This is an issue for any government but is any shock that a totalitarian regime is nosier about such matter than in the West but not by much?

 

[epobirs]

Despite the price drops, it's still impossible to buy most PC models with a factory installed SSD or SSD and hard drive configuration. The single best upgrade to the PC in many years is still largely limited in market reach because the marketing people don't understand how to sell it.

The clients I've done SSD upgrades for would never buy another PC without an SSD as the main volume but most brands don't offer SSDs in their mainstream models. If I install the SSD in a new PC it breaks the warranty.

And the industry wonders why it is in severe decline.

 

[PaulAlcorn]

Despite the price drops, it's still impossible to buy most PC models with a factory installed SSD or SSD and hard drive configuration....

The clients I've done SSD upgrades for would never buy another PC without an SSD as the main volume but most brands don't offer SSDs in their mainstream models. If I install the SSD in a new PC it breaks the warranty.

And the industry wonders why it is in severe decline.

I couldn't agree more. If someone kicks around on a PC for a bit at a big box store it is going to be a pretty miserable experience in comparison to a tablet, which by default is powered by flash. Suddenly that tablet looks a lot better than a clunky PC, and the problem is the HDD.
HDDs should still ship with PC's, we need the capacity, but there is no excuse for every shipping PC not to have an SSD for an OS drive. Perhaps this would stop some of the slow bleeding of PC users over to tablets and other moblie devices as their primary computing platform.

 

[Roy_5_]

Just drop HDD entirely and go 100% ssd start at the bottom again in terms of capacity' s

 

[Solandri]

Forgive my ignorance, but why do two American companies need Chinese approval for the merger?

If they want to be able to sell their products in China, they need to get approval from the Chinese government. Same thing with the EU, Korea, Japan. All had to approve the WD-Hitachi merger. And in fact, it was these governments which came up with the idea of Hitachi selling its 3.5" HDD production to Toshiba as a condition of approval for the merger. (Toshiba only made 2.5" HDDs up til then, so by having them buy Hitachi's 3.5" HDD production, we now have three 3.5" HDD manufacturers instead of two.)

 

[termathor]

Win10 is definitely malware. It uses malware techniques (sneaky "security" updates), and will soon deliver its full payload (ransom, ads, other ...).

To anyone that updates, I always say: "you're already screwed, enjoy the ride".

 

[eriko]

Win10 is definitely malware. It uses malware techniques (sneaky "security" updates), and will soon deliver its full payload (ransom, ads, other ...).

To anyone that updates, I always say: "you're already screwed, enjoy the ride".

Eventually the Microsoft 'Pre-crime division' will come to get us.

<removed> Windows 10.

Watch the language. - G

 

[g-unit1111]

256GB micro SD? Sweet, can I buy one yet? :lol:

 

[BulkZerker]

" Just drop HDD entirely and go 100% ssd start at the bottom again in terms of capacity."

When SSDs get down to $80 usd for a 1tb drive, sure. Till then spinning ruat platters will rule the roost. PC owners atr spoiled by having more storage than they need (by a factor of 4 usually) and are programmed to think more is better.

Let's say you were going to buy a car. Would you buy the sub compact for $24,000 or the midsize sedan? That's kind of thinking is what the everyman has. The same applies to computers.

 

[Lyn Boxall]

Are you guys who are writing about auto-upgrades now in the US or somewhere else? (That's a serious question. Wherever you are, you are lucky it's taken this long for this scourge to reach you.)

I live in Singapore. From about September or October 2015 I got these 'do you want to upgrade' messages. I said 'no' every time. I don't like the way Windows 10 infringes privacy and didn't have the time to find and changes all necessary settings to stop them doing so. Plus my help desk guy advised me to wait until more bugs were ironed out.

I went down to Australia in mid-December. I still kept on answering 'no'. But I didn't turn off the auto-updates. Silly of me, but lulled into a false sense of security by continually being asked. I didn't turn my computer off one night and the next morning, guess what? I'd been automatically upgraded. I then spent two or three hours deleting all the rubbish that comes bundled with Windows 10 (and that I'd already deleted from Windows 8), reloading my printer, scanner, etc. drivers, finding and re-setting my preferred defaults, finding file folders and such things that Windows 10 had decided I'd like to file in a different place. Oh, and deciding that I'd bite the bullet and move to an Apple Mac. I don't suppose Microsoft cares that they lost a customer.

The same thing happened to a friend of mine in Singapore, but a bunch of his files and emails were either deleted by the upgrade or buried so deeply in some strange place that he's not been able to find them. And he's no amateur computer user.