Microsoft to ban HDD installation of Windows 11 in off-the-shelf PCs next year
According to a recent corporate brief from data storage industry analyst firm Trendfocus, OEMs have revealed that Microsoft is pushing them to replace HDDs with SSDs in pre-built Windows 11 PCs and stick to those plans. Interestingly, there are no specific SSD requirements for Windows 11 PCs listed by Microsoft, and OEMs have pushed back on the deadlines for the switchover set for 2023. We contacted Microsoft for comment on the situation; however, the firm has declined to comment at this time.
According to Microsoft's most up-to-date list of hardware requirements, a '64 GB or larger storage device' is required for Windows 11, so an SSD isn't necessarily required for a typical installation. However, two features, DirectStorage and the Windows Subsystem for Android, demand an SSD; you don't have to use them. Whether or not Microsoft will modify the minimum system requirements after 2023 when pre-built computers must be equipped with SSDs is unclear.
From a performance standpoint, forcing OEMs to replace HDDs with SSDs for boot volumes makes perfect sense - SSDs are many orders of magnitude faster for operating systems than hard drives, resulting in a quicker, more responsive user experience. Many laptops and desktop PCs now have an SSD as the main boot drive, while some computers still rely on a secondary hard drive to store large files like images and videos. Some lower-end models in developing/emerging countries, however, continue to use a hard disk as the start device.
The problem with replacing all technologies to SSDs boils down to cost: Trendfocus Vice President John Chen claims that upgrading a 1TB HDD would necessitate stepping down to a low-cost 256 GB SSD, which OEMs do not regard as adequate storage for most users. The rising cost of flash memory has limited the amount of additional space available in drive bays.
SSDs have already largely replaced hard drives as the primary storage in developed nations, although there are some exceptions. Microsoft's Chen forecasts that only dual-drive desktop PCs and gaming laptops with both an SSD for the boot drive and a HDD for bulk storage will be mass-market PCs with an HDD.
Even though SSD pricing has plummeted dramatically during the first few years of adoption, you'll still pay far less per gigabyte for HDD storage than you would for an SSD. Storage pricing can vary widely, and OEMs undoubtedly pay less, but the high-performance 1TB NVMe SK hynix Platinum P41, which tops our list of best SSDs, costs approximately $0.14 a gigabyte. The bargain-basement 1TB Crucial BX500 is available for just $0.08 per gigabyte down at the low end of the SATA spectrum. In comparison, a 1TB Seagate Barracuda hard drive costs only $0.05 per GB.
It's uncertain what measures, if any, Microsoft would take against OEMs who don't follow its instructions, and the firm has declined to comment on the situation. According to Trendfocus, the shift will have a significant impact on HDD demand in 2018. We'll let you know if we learn anything additional, but it appears that SSDs will soon completely replace HDDs in consumer PCs. Hopefully , as the main competitor on price, the HDD gradually fades away into bulk storage applications as SSD prices continue to drop.
Source: www.tomshardware.com
