> ...people are always going to end up using as much space as given...
I used to be certain of that, based on my personal space usage habits. Based on my ongoing survey of both technical and non-technical computer users, I no longer believe that to be true.
The rise of The Cloud(TM) means that there are shockingly few users who intentionally keep a local copy of their data. Media streaming and synced storage means that a wide swath of the computer-using population store that shit remotely and throw away data when The Cloud(TM) gets full.
> ...it's unhelpful and inappropriate to claim [silicon wafer] costs are insignificant.
When the analysis demonstrates that the costs are an insignificant fraction of the total cost, then it is entirely appropriate to make that claim. :)
Silicon wafers may well remain more expensive than harddrive platters. The price of silicon wafers may well mean that SSDs will never reach price parity with HDDs. These facts don't magically make $0.25 per chip a significant factor in the manufacturing cost of a product that also required substantial original research and development to come to market. :)
I used to be certain of that, based on my personal space usage habits. Based on my ongoing survey of both technical and non-technical computer users, I no longer believe that to be true.
The rise of The Cloud(TM) means that there are shockingly few users who intentionally keep a local copy of their data. Media streaming and synced storage means that a wide swath of the computer-using population store that shit remotely and throw away data when The Cloud(TM) gets full.
> ...it's unhelpful and inappropriate to claim [silicon wafer] costs are insignificant.
When the analysis demonstrates that the costs are an insignificant fraction of the total cost, then it is entirely appropriate to make that claim. :)
Silicon wafers may well remain more expensive than harddrive platters. The price of silicon wafers may well mean that SSDs will never reach price parity with HDDs. These facts don't magically make $0.25 per chip a significant factor in the manufacturing cost of a product that also required substantial original research and development to come to market. :)