5mm and 7mm hard disks to soar in coming years

As consumers shift to ultra-thin PCs and PC-based tablets, demand for 5mm and 7mm hard disks is expected to skyrocket in the coming years according to IHS. The shipment forecast is 74 million units this year, compared to a mere 5 million in 2012 and this figure is expected to reach 133 by 2017.

On the other hand, shipments of 9.5mm hard disks are expected to decline to just 79 million in 2017, compared to the 150 million forecast for this year and the much larger 245 million shipments in 2012.

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2.5mm hard disk

Up until now, tablet PCs almost exclusively use solid state NAND storage, but with the introduction of 5mm and hybrid HDDs which use a small SSD as a cache to improve performance, the IHS predicts that ultra-thin PCs/laptops and tablet PCs makers may consider to introduce models with hard disks, especially if the HDD cost falls to 10-15% of a tablet or 10-20% of an ultra-thin PC/laptop.

The estimated total SSD shipments are expected to reach 64.6 million this year, up 90% over the previous year. If tablets and ultrathin computers start switching to hard disks to undercut competitors that use SSDs, HDDs will continue to dominate sales well in to the future.

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All three hard disks manufacturers have already started shipping 5mm and 7mm hard disks. Back in April, Western Digital was the first to announce shipping of its 5mm range, the WD Blue ultra-slim HDD and the Black SSHD (Solid State Hybrid Drive), followed by the world's thinnest 1TB HDD, the 7mm WD Blue 1TB in June. Seagate also started shipping 5mm hard disks in June. Finally, Toshiba announced shipment of its 7mm SSHD in capacities of 320GB and 500GB by the end of June.

Further information can be found in the DigiTimes press release.

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