In a recent report from Tom’s Hardware, Microsoft is said to be planning to make PC makers ship solid-state boot drives in all Windows PCs beginning 2023 or 2024, ending the era of spinning hard drives for most of the PCs that still have them.
A closer look at Dell’s and HP’s websites as well as their new desktop listings on Newegg show that an SSD requirement would impact two market segments for US PC buyers. First would be the bottom-end of the consumer desktop market, where some Inspiron and Pavilion systems still ship sans any SSDs. Second would be the business desktop market, where Optiplex, Vostro, and ProDesk systems include HDDs in base models. Furthermore, the requirement could also negatively impact more price-sensitive “developing markets” overseas.
Systems that still utilize spinning hard drives also use 1TB models. Now that a reliable 1TB hard drive and an entry-level 250GB or 500GB SSD may be purchased for $40 and $50, it has now become highly possible for manufacturers to make the switch sans any price increase.
Trading storage capacity for hugely increased speeds is the more practical move for most consumers as not everyone needs 1TB of data but everyone stands to benefit from faster booting, app and game launch times, and multitasking.
Despite being slowly phased out, hard drives continue to evolve as manufacturers now focus on increasing the capacity of drive platters via new data recording technologies.
For more information, read the original story in Arstechnica.
