Tracking the ups and downs of the hard disk drive (HDD) industry's lengthy history isn't easy. HDDs were introduced in 1956 by IBM and have endured while a series of tech industry analyst firms charting the revenue and sales volume of the mechanical storage segment has come and gone. However, Tom Coughlin, President of Coughlin Associates and a storage analyst and consultant, recently shared some illuminating HDD industry performance charts spanning the whole 67 years to the present day. He collaborated with a hard disk business colleague, Tom Gardner, to produce the graphics below.
You can see the best estimates that we have of HDD industry revenue to the present day. Gardner color-coded the data from the various analyst firms, showing some uneven overlaps across the multiple eras. While the linear chart shows some glitches in collating revenue across the different analyst firms, the logarithmic vertical scale chart illustrates the revenue trend to the present day is much smoother and more predictable.
Both charts clearly show peak revenue for the HDD industry was reached in 2012. Coughlin notes that peak shipment volumes for HDDs were seen in 2010. So, why this disparity? Those who have been into PC DIY for 15 years or more will probably remember the Thai floods in 2011, which caused HDD shortages and thus impacted supply/demand to influence pricing.
Another interesting observation by Coughlin is that while we see the decline in HDD revenues and shipment volumes, “HDD prices have been generally increasing.” The storage analyst explains that as SSDs have displaced HDDs in lower storage capacity requirement consumer devices, the market has become skewed towards high-capacity devices.
It is plain to see from Gardner’s charts that the fortunes of the HDD industry are still in a phase where we are witnessing rapid declines. “In 2022 HDD total shipments were 172 million units and $20.4 billion,” Coughlin notes. “We estimate that unit shipments in 2023 will total about 127 million units with total revenues less than $14 billion.” Most would agree that is a sleep slide.
2024: AI boom to the rescue
However, it isn’t the end of what has affectionately become known as spinning rust. According to the source, 2024 will be a good year for all types of storage device makers. You guessed it, the AI boom will cause increased demand for both NAND Flash and HDD storage.
In the coming year, the remaining HDD manufacturers are projected to ship 127 million units (around 900 Exabytes of data capacity) with revenues of just under $14 billion. The figures are eerily similar to last year, but at least the steep decline will have ceased, for now.
