Flash Memory

Will flash memory ever replace optical discs or hard drive storage?

I don’t think so. All three should be able to happily co-exist for a long time. Each media type has significant advantages over the others.

While flash memory is small, fast and getting cheaper all the time, it is still extremely expensive on a per unit basis compared to optical discs and hard drives.

Today, you can buy a 2 Gig USB drive or flash memory card for around $50. You can buy a 250 Gig hard drive for less than $100. That’s more than 100 times the storage for less than twice the price. Optical media is relatively cheap also. 4 Gigs of flash memory will cost you at least $100. A 4.7 Gig DVD-R can be had for much less than $1.

Prices of flash memory are dropping all the time, but so are hard drive prices; and capacities of both are increasing just as quickly.
Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of each type:

Flash Memory:
Pro – Small, super fast access times, usable in a wide variety of devices, doesn’t require constant power, capacity increasing and price decreasing all the time.
Con – Very expensive per unit of storage.

Hard Drive:
Pro – Enormous capacities, fast sequential access times, extremely low cost per unit of storage, price decreasing all the time.
Con – Susceptible to magnetic effects, relatively slow random access times, small drive failures can render all data unreadable.

Optical Media:
Pro – Impervious to magnetic effects, cannot be overwritten so useful for archiving, reported lifespan up to 100 years (under good storage conditions), failure of one part of the disc may not affect other parts, usable in a wide variety of devices, low cost per unit of storage.
Con – Relatively fixed capacity, media decays very quickly under poor storage conditions, cannot be reused, painfully slow random access times.

As you can see, each type of media has benefits the others can’t match. In the future, as they do now, each type will have its place. Flash memory will be used for situations where quick access times and portability are paramount. Hard disks will be used where capacity is the primary concern. Optical media will be used for long term archiving and media distribution.

Will movies and other media ever be distributed on flash memory? I don’t think so. Optical media will always be cheaper for that purpose. The only method for wide scale distribution that is cheaper than optical media is digital distribution. That has its own problems, which is a subject for another post.