The mechanical HDD space is weird. There have been like ten (or fifteen?) years of "HAMR/MAMR in two to three years" and one to two years of "HAMR/MAMR are actually shipping now!" - but I still don't see them in stores. These technologies only seem to barely increase capacities for now, and price per TB hasn't decreased in three years. It's not looking too good for mechanical drives.
OTOH, I got a Samsung 980 Pro 2 TB m.2 SSD for 170€ or so...
HDDs are getting increasingly squeezed between SSD and tape. In the past decade or so, HDDs have gone from in ~95% of consumer computers to probably <5% (extreme low end and extreme high end). they're still common in servers, but the reduced customer marketshare means manufacturers no longer care about getting the new tech to consumers. All their sales are to enterprise.
> Nobody among the ~half billion in EU wants their HDDs
A 24TB HDD like the N300 would primarily be used in data center, private cloud, or HPC/ML usecases.
Europe just doesn't have the market size to justify supplying there versus fulfilling orders in NAM, APAC, and MENA [0], where majority of the growth is happening.
OTOH, I got a Samsung 980 Pro 2 TB m.2 SSD for 170€ or so...
These are targeted at private cloud or DC use-cases, not really consumer use-cases. I doubt most consumers are building their own servers.
A 24TB HDD like the N300 would primarily be used in data center, private cloud, or HPC/ML usecases.
Europe just doesn't have the market size to justify supplying there versus fulfilling orders in NAM, APAC, and MENA [0], where majority of the growth is happening.
[0] - https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/insights/global-data-cen...