Toshiba Identifies Key HDD Market Trends in 2025
The balance between capacity and cost, SRM Technology and Recycling, along with the rise of AI, video surveillance and enterprise HDDs in the AV environment are some of the trends that Toshiba Electronics Europe GmbH forecast for next year.
The trends of the Hard Disk or HDD Market for 2025 have been analyzed by Toshiba Electronics Europe, which identifies a long journey of this technology due to its ability to Storing large amounts of data cheaply, making them a good choice in many areas, From data centers and cloud computing, Until Video surveillance, audiovisual and Gaming.
Under this principle, Toshiba notes that the strategic focus on seeking the Balancing capacity and cost will continue to shape the evolution of the HDD market in 2025. Despite the temporary respite that the increase in prices of SSDs in 2024, due to the demand for AI-enabled infrastructure, This company predicts that the long-term competitiveness of hard drives will depend on them offering increasing capacity at a constant cost.
Another trend for 2025 is the Adoption of stepped magnetic recording technology (Smr), A technique for writing data whereby data tracks are partially overlapped to increase the density and total storage capacity per platter.
Toshiba believes SMR technology is already poised for wider market acceptance, which will allow Store more data in the same physical space, and he believes that the industry will use it to More Consistent Workloads, with a buffer optimized cache that absorbs short bursts of random write; while CMR will be a specialized option for enterprise servers with different types of workloads.
As you point out Rainer W. Kaese, Senior Director of HDD Business Development at Toshiba Electronics Europe, "If CMR technology is like a V8 engine of 4 liters with 300 horses and able to drive everywhere, SMR is more like a turbo engine of 4 cylinders and 2,5 Litres; It is more compact and economical, but it may have certain limitations in certain driving scenarios".
Rise of AI and video surveillance
Another trend that will impact storage for 2025 is the rise of AI, given the need to have Extensive datasets for analysis. From autonomous driving and smart factories to smart cities and other IoT-enabled industries, The advancement of this technology has led to an increase in the enterprise-level HDD demand and will continue to be so.
The expansion of video surveillance has also been driving the HDD market for years and will continue to do so in the future. 2025. The Sequential nature of security video data and their overwriting at some point makes HDDs the optimal choice.
In addition, The video surveillance systems use some form of AI-enabled analytics, which means you need to have more data and a reliable storage system for longer periods of time.
Environmental responsibility and recycling
Another trend for 2025 identified by Toshiba is awareness of the Hard Drive Recycling, particularly as the large-scale decommissioning of the first infrastructure deployment begins Cloud. In view of what has been installed in the second half of the last decade, a large wave of HDD material will have to be recycled.
In this sense, and given the importance of working with appropriate recycling organizations or value chains, Toshiba notes that the Service Providers Cloud are preparing for a significant influx of HDD materials that need to be recycled and anticipates that, in the coming years, Hard drive suppliers consolidate themselves as an integral part of the process.
As Kaese states, "The physical weight of the cloud is tons of electronics, of which more than half come from hard drives. However, HDDs are noticeably easier to recycle than other devices because they only contain two or three different metals and, In addition, compared to other products such as batteries, you don't have to deal with toxic waste and complex compounds".
Enterprise HDDs in AV
Another trend that emerged years ago and that will gain weight in 2025 is the awareness of Backup. In this regard., Toshiba reminds that it is not advisable to rely on the cloud as the only backup solution; The most prudent thing to do is to make backups using different methods and preserve, at least, A Duplicate of your own data through alternative technology.
On the other hand, and while wireless connectivity to an external HDD has generated some attention, according to Toshiba it will not be a trend in 2025, mainly due to cost factors. However, The portable hard drives with USB Type-C connector will become an expected standard.
Finally,, Toshiba appreciates as an unexpected trend in 2025 the popularization of High-capacity enterprise HDDs (16Tb, 18TB or 20TB) between users who require substantial local storage. This trend is shared by professionals who work in the Audiovisual sector fans of Gaming, who prefer to store their data locally, since transferring them to and from the cloud would take too long.
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