Apple's iPad shaking up hard drive industry - report
As Apple's success with the iPad continues to grow, hard drive makers warn that sales of Apple's tablet will continue eating away at sales of hard drive-equipped PCs.
Western Digital Chief Executive John Coyne told analysts Tuesday during an earnings call that tablet computers such as Apple's iPad are slowing the hard drive business, especially on the low-end. The iPad could cause as much as a 10 to 20 percent reduction in shipments of low-end laptops and netbooks over the next few quarters, Reuters noted Coyne as saying.
"What I would say to investors is to look at the long-term demand for storage, the fact is the most appropriate solution for mass volume storage is hard drives and to look at the long-term progress the industry has made over the last 10 years," said Coyne in an effort to reassure investors.
Both Western Digital and rival hard drive manufacturer Seagate watched their stock price steadily drop during the early part of this year, although rumors of buyouts have helped the stocks rally in recent weeks. According to Reuters, some analysts view Western Digital as a "good candidate for a leveraged buyout" because of its low share price and strong cash flow. Western Digital's stock price has fallen 35 percent since January.
Several private equity firms have reportedly expressed interest in purchasing Seagate and taking it private, Reuters reports. The company has been down that road before; it went private in 2000, re-entering the public market in 2002. Seagate will report its quarterly earnings on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, as hard drive makers suffer, NAND flash makers may benefit from the upheaval. Japanese newspaper Nikkei projected Wednesday that Toshiba will beat its first-half of the year operating profit forecast by more than 43 percent due to strong sales of flash memory chips, according to Reuters. In a filing with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, Apple listed Toshiba as the provider of the iPad's NAND flash storage, although teardown specialists at iFixit found a Samsung flash chip inside the iPad unit they disassembled.
Apple's rapid consumption of flash memory has caused several worldwide shortages as the company has moved toward NAND storage solutions. The Cupertino, Calif., company currently uses NAND flash in a wide variety of its products, including the new $99 Apple TV.
Apple revealed Monday that it had sold a record 4.19 million iPads in the September quarter, outselling its Mac computer line after just two quarters of availability. Wall Street analysts had expected higher sales of the iPad, but supply had remained constrained throughout the quarter. According to iSuppli, NAND flash is one of the components limiting production of the tablet device.
Another blow to hard drive manufacturers could come in the form of an updated MacBook Air. Sources say the next-generation MacBook Air, which is expected to be unveiled at Wednesday's "Back to the Mac" event, could do away with the conventional hard-disk drive (HDD) and high-end solid-state drive (SSD) in favor of a smaller "SSD Card" resembling a stick of RAM.
Western Digital Chief Executive John Coyne told analysts Tuesday during an earnings call that tablet computers such as Apple's iPad are slowing the hard drive business, especially on the low-end. The iPad could cause as much as a 10 to 20 percent reduction in shipments of low-end laptops and netbooks over the next few quarters, Reuters noted Coyne as saying.
"What I would say to investors is to look at the long-term demand for storage, the fact is the most appropriate solution for mass volume storage is hard drives and to look at the long-term progress the industry has made over the last 10 years," said Coyne in an effort to reassure investors.
Both Western Digital and rival hard drive manufacturer Seagate watched their stock price steadily drop during the early part of this year, although rumors of buyouts have helped the stocks rally in recent weeks. According to Reuters, some analysts view Western Digital as a "good candidate for a leveraged buyout" because of its low share price and strong cash flow. Western Digital's stock price has fallen 35 percent since January.
Several private equity firms have reportedly expressed interest in purchasing Seagate and taking it private, Reuters reports. The company has been down that road before; it went private in 2000, re-entering the public market in 2002. Seagate will report its quarterly earnings on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, as hard drive makers suffer, NAND flash makers may benefit from the upheaval. Japanese newspaper Nikkei projected Wednesday that Toshiba will beat its first-half of the year operating profit forecast by more than 43 percent due to strong sales of flash memory chips, according to Reuters. In a filing with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, Apple listed Toshiba as the provider of the iPad's NAND flash storage, although teardown specialists at iFixit found a Samsung flash chip inside the iPad unit they disassembled.
Apple's rapid consumption of flash memory has caused several worldwide shortages as the company has moved toward NAND storage solutions. The Cupertino, Calif., company currently uses NAND flash in a wide variety of its products, including the new $99 Apple TV.
Apple revealed Monday that it had sold a record 4.19 million iPads in the September quarter, outselling its Mac computer line after just two quarters of availability. Wall Street analysts had expected higher sales of the iPad, but supply had remained constrained throughout the quarter. According to iSuppli, NAND flash is one of the components limiting production of the tablet device.
Another blow to hard drive manufacturers could come in the form of an updated MacBook Air. Sources say the next-generation MacBook Air, which is expected to be unveiled at Wednesday's "Back to the Mac" event, could do away with the conventional hard-disk drive (HDD) and high-end solid-state drive (SSD) in favor of a smaller "SSD Card" resembling a stick of RAM.
Comments
For the near term, hard drive based storage is the future, but the writing is in the wall. That graffiti started years ago with the first 64MB Thumb Drive for $200. We all knew then that EVENTUALLY flash memory would be the future. In five years 200GB will cost $64 and the game will be over. In ten years maybe everything will be on the cloud (a scary thought for it's own reason).
.... We all knew then that EVENTUALLY flash memory would be the future. In five years 200GB will cost $64 and the game will be over. In ten years maybe everything will be on the cloud (a scary thought for it's own reason).
Yeah, and in the cloud - I guess everything is back on hard drives again. So, long term might very well be hard drives after all. A thousand years from now though, maybe we store it Johnny Mnemonic style
Yeah, and in the cloud - I guess everything is back on hard drives again.
Exactly. The movement is toward high capacity hard drives and NAND for the consumer space. Suits me to a tee!
Still, it would be nice to see an Apple iOS based NAS with a normal hard drive.
Just do it Steve, I know you want to.
Well, if WD & Seagate aren't keeping up and broadening their portfolio into NAND and other storage tech, they may become dinosaurs...
They only got into Flash early this year or later last year.
I wonder why they were slow to get into Flash?
But the MacBook *is* Apple's mainstream laptop. And I expect Apple to expand the MacBook line from the current hard-drive based white plastic model to two aluminum unibody models. Neither of which will have an optical drive, and possibly both with the new flash "card" NAND mass storage instead of HD or SSD mass storage.
That alone isn't enough to really hurt the hard drive makers. But if Apple sells the 11.6" MacBook for $799 without a hard drive, that will definitely hurt. And further down the road, Apple won't be the only laptop maker to use the "card" NAND mass storage. Especially if it's cheaper than SSDs.
Would it make sense, long-term, for Apple to own a NAND memory factory?
Or is it better to buy a touchscreen factory?
What bothers me about this rumored prototype AIR is that it is using SATA for the flash interface. That is fairly stupid as the interface is already to slow. So it looks like a half assed solution.
Hopefully it is just a prototype and Apple won't saddle us with a useless interface standard. For the long term you need to support PCI Express for flash storage.
Yeah, and in the cloud - I guess everything is back on hard drives again. So, long term might very well be hard drives after all. A thousand years from now though, maybe we store it Johnny Mnemonic style
Didn't his brain have a 80GB limitation and had to "erase" some of his childhood memories to "double" the capacity?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Mnemonic_(film)
I think I'd stick with the cloud.
Sounds reminiscent of what manufacturers of other innovation lapped products said, like 8-Track, cassettes, CDs, VCRs, picture tubes, cork, lambskin, etc...
For the near term, hard drive based storage is the future, but the writing is in the wall. That graffiti started years ago with the first 64MB Thumb Drive for $200. We all knew then that EVENTUALLY flash memory would be the future. In five years 200GB will cost $64 and the game will be over. In ten years maybe everything will be on the cloud (a scary thought for it's own reason).
Yep and one has to ask where was their foresight? Why didn't they invest in new technologies? It reminds me of Kodak refusing to concede silver halide to pixels till it was too late.
Steve must be thinking "We're paying billions for all that NAND. What if we made it ourselves?"
Would it make sense, long-term, for Apple to own a NAND memory factory?
Or is it better to buy a touchscreen factory?
Or both ...
What bothers me about this rumored prototype AIR is that it is using SATA for the flash interface. That is fairly stupid as the interface is already to slow. So it looks like a half assed solution.
Hopefully it is just a prototype and Apple won't saddle us with a useless interface standard. For the long term you need to support PCI Express for flash storage.
I don't agree at all. SATA isn't just a cable, it defines the entire bus interface.
If you wanted to replace it you would need to create an entirely new communication specification, including equivalents for SATA enhancements like NCQ, all the while making sure you didn't step on anyone else's patents.
After you define the new interface you would need to (at great expense) have host controller chips designed that implement the new interface and get (once again at great expense) drive\\NAND manufactures to incorporate the new controller chip into their designs.
Once the hardware side was complete you would need to create OS drivers for the new interface and go through huge amounts of testing to make them on par with the tried and tested SATA drivers.
All of this when SATA can already do 600 MB/s, which is well beyond the capabilities of any flash drive you'll be putting into a consumer PC, especially an AIR.
I don't agree at all. SATA isn't just a cable, it defines the entire bus interface.
If you wanted to replace it you would need to create an entirely new communication specification, including equivalents for SATA enhancements like NCQ, all the while making sure you didn't step on anyone else's patents.
After you define the new interface you would need to (at great expense) have host controller chips designed that implement the new interface and get (once again at great expense) drive\\NAND manufactures to incorporate the new controller chip into their designs.
Once the hardware side was complete you would need to create OS drivers for the new interface and go through huge amounts of testing to make them on par with the tried and tested SATA drivers.
All of this when SATA can already do 600 MB/s, which is well beyond the capabilities of any flash drive you'll be putting into a consumer PC, especially an AIR.
Agreed. On top of all that, a SATA SSD is normally replaceable and upgradeable. Hopefully, that's the case with the unenclosed SSD. I wouldn't want to be stuck with whatever the laptop was built with, with no way of upgrading if I need more storage. That's fine for an iPad, not so for a laptop. Besides, SATA is an industry standard, and Apple already got too much grief in the past from people who had usually legitimate complaints about them eschewing industry standards in favor of proprietary hardware.
I put away my ext. HD and bring it out once a month for backup. Less cables, no pwr brick and one less item sitting on my desk. I use DropBox and iDisk. Looking for the best cloud solution.
best
Yep and one has to ask where was their foresight? Why didn't they invest in new technologies? It reminds me of Kodak refusing to concede silver halide to pixels till it was too late.
So the question arises to you and others who think as such: How much did you personally invest in the new technology?
How many of us have invested and bought shares in Apple, if ever at all?
And just how many of the companies that could bring about the new technology would you be comfortable that they have the expertise to develop it?
But as they say, hindsight is always better than foresight.
Agreed. On top of all that, a SATA SSD is normally replaceable and upgradeable. Hopefully, that's the case with the unenclosed SSD. I wouldn't want to be stuck with whatever the laptop was built with, with no way of upgrading if I need more storage. That's fine for an iPad, not so for a laptop. Besides, SATA is an industry standard, and Apple already got too much grief in the past from people who had usually legitimate complaints about them eschewing industry standards in favor of proprietary hardware.
Agreed that SATA is an okay option, and industry standard interfaces are the best way to go, although I think that PCI Express could be a better choice - it's also a standard interface, has already been used by other companies for super-fast RAM disk storage cards, etc.
If done correctly (and if/when component prices drop) with SLC Flash or super-fast MLC Flash with the right controller, the "drive" could theoretically transfer 8GB/s of data on a PCI Express x16 bus - that's about 13 times faster than SATA, making MacOS X booting nearly instantly a practical reality.