(Image credit: Shutterstock / Illus_man)
Hard disk drives are still integral to data storage, but despite getting ever larger and faster, their role has narrowed over the years. Once the default choice for almost every workload, HDDs are now increasingly confined to areas where capacity and cost per TB matter more than speed, latency, and energy use.
The move hasn’t happened overnight of course. Flash storage has become cheaper, denser, and more reliable, and data centers are under pressure to cut power consumption, cooling demands, and even physical footprint. At the same time, the volume of data being generated keeps growing, forcing operators to rethink…
(Image credit: Shutterstock / Illus_man)
Hard disk drives are still integral to data storage, but despite getting ever larger and faster, their role has narrowed over the years. Once the default choice for almost every workload, HDDs are now increasingly confined to areas where capacity and cost per TB matter more than speed, latency, and energy use.
The move hasn’t happened overnight of course. Flash storage has become cheaper, denser, and more reliable, and data centers are under pressure to cut power consumption, cooling demands, and even physical footprint. At the same time, the volume of data being generated keeps growing, forcing operators to rethink how and where information is stored.
As a result, a wide range of technologies are being explored as alternatives to hard drives and we’ve covered a lot of these here at TechRadar Pro. Some technologies are already appearing in production environments, while others remain firmly... experimental, shall we say.
These are the the technologies I think you’ll be hearing more about in the coming years.
1. High-capacity enterprise SSDs
SSDs are, of course, the most obvious candidates to replace hard drives, particularly in modern data centers. Vendors are now pushing flash well beyond the 100TB mark, directly targeting workloads that once relied on large HDD arrays.
Micron’s 6600 ION is available in a 122TB PCIe Gen5 configuration and could well scale to 245TB. At those capacities, Micron claims a single rack will be able to reach up to 88PB of storage, while a 2U server populated with 36 E3.S SSDs can hold as much as 4.42PB.
Built on Micron’s G9 NAND, the drive is all about density, power efficiency, and space savings, with the aim to allow hyperscale and enterprise operators to consolidate storage while lowering energy use and cooling requirements.
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2. E2 SSD form factor
The E2 SSD form factor targets a different slice of the market, focusing on warm data that sits between hot and cold storage tiers. It’s designed to replace large HDD arrays where capacity and cost matter more than peak performance.
Developed through collaboration between SNIA and the Open Compute Project, E2 targets petabyte-scale flash density in standard 2U servers. In its most ambitious form, a single E2 drive could hold up to 1PB of QLC flash.
The design follows the EDSFF Ruler standard and uses NVMe over PCIe 6.0. Power draw and heat output remain major challenges, but supporters see E2 as a practical flash-based middle ground between expensive high-performance SSDs and space-hungry HDD storage.
3. 5D memory crystal storage
5D memory crystal storage targets a very different role to hard drives, focusing on long-term archival durability rather than speed. The technology uses fused silica glass etched with femtosecond lasers to encode data in microscopic structures.
Information is stored across five dimensions, combining spatial position with orientation and intensity. A single five-inch glass disc is claimed to be able to store up to 360TB, with data remaining stable at temperatures of up to 190°C for extremely long periods.
As is often the case with new, experimental tech, current prototypes are slow, with write speeds around 4MB/s and read speeds near 30MB/s, placing it firmly in the cold storage tier.
4. DNA data storage
Instead of magnetism or charge, this approach, perhaps the most radical alternative to hard drives, encodes digital data into synthetic DNA by translating binary into the four DNA bases.
This allows (in theory at least) vast amounts of information to be stored in a tiny physical space. Some companies argue that, at scale, DNA storage could allow humanity’s data to fit inside a single data-center rack.
DNA remains stable for thousands of years without power, making it attractive for long-term preservation. Although early commercial products exist, performance is slow, costs are high, and DNA storage remains far from ready for mainstream deployment.
5. Standing-wave storage
Standing-wave storage or SWS is another attempt to rethink long-term data preservation by removing power, refresh cycles, and magnetic media entirely. Developed at Wave Domain by Clark Johnson, the brains behind HDTV revolution, the technology draws inspiration from early photographic techniques, storing data as color interference patterns inside a silver halide emulsion.
The method captures standing light waves in a durable plate, creating a physical record that can remain stable for centuries without energy input. NASA testing exposed samples to cosmic radiation aboard the International Space Station for months, with no measurable data degradation reported.
Standing-wave storage is aimed at cold archives rather than active systems. Access requires optical scanning and buffering, but its resistance to radiation, moisture, and time makes it a candidate for scientific, governmental,** **and space data that needs to survive far longer than hard drives or tape.
6. SSD-tape hybrid
Huawei’s Magneto-Electric Disk (MED) uses an internal SSD for fast access alongside a built-in tape mechanism, but presents itself externally as a block storage device rather than a traditional tape system.
Data that needs quicker access is written to the SSD portion, while colder data is automatically moved onto the internal tape. Retrieving tape-stored data takes longer, but the system avoids the complexity of external tape libraries and reduces power use compared with large HDD arrays.
By hiding tape behind a disk-like interface, the design targets workloads that sit between warm and cold storage. We expected to see the first generation of it in 2025, with a second-generation model in 2026 or 2027, but Huawei hasn’t made any announcements recently.
7. Atomic and defect-based storage
Atomic and defect-based storage concepts push data storage to the level of individual atoms. Academic research has shown how tiny defects inside crystals can act as binary memory cells.
In one approach, rare-earth-doped crystals are used to trap charges that represent ones and zeroes. Each missing atom functions as a single bit, allowing extreme data density in very small volumes.
The technology is experimental and slow, but in theory it could store terabytes of data in a space no larger than a grain of rice. Its focus is naturally on ultralong-term archival storage rather than active use.
8. UltraRAM
The aim with this one is to collapse storage and memory into a single technology. Originating from research at Lancaster University and developed by UK startup Quinas Technology, UltraRAM targets DRAM-like speeds with SSD-style non-volatility.
UltraRAM stores electrons in a quantum well, allowing fast access without the constant refreshing required by DRAM or the wear mechanisms associated with flash. Power use is also expected to be far lower than existing memory technologies.
Government funding and industry recognition have helped move UltraRAM beyond laboratory demonstrations. Manufacturing hurdles remain however, and its future depends on whether it can scale economically.
9. Organic and molecular storage
This research explores whether data can be stored at a chemical scale instead of through magnetism or charge. Researchers in China are investigating molecular hard drives built from organometallic compounds.
Data is written and read using a conductive atomic force microscope tip that triggers controlled chemical reactions. This allows extremely fine control over conductance states and very high theoretical data density.
This can also enable encryption directly within the material. Despite its promise, durability, scalability, and the practicality of the read-write mechanism remain unresolved.
10. Ceramic storage
Ceramic storage is aimed squarely at archival data, where longevity and energy efficiency matter far more than access speed. Western Digital-backed Cerabyte is leading the approach and uses laser-engraved ceramic nanolayers to store data in an inert medium designed to remain stable for thousands of years without requiring power.
Early pilot systems are expected to deliver around 1PB per rack, although access times are very slow compared with disk or flash. Cerabyte’s roadmap points to much higher densities, with targets rising to 100PB per rack alongside faster transfer rates.
If those targets are reached, ceramic storage could compete directly with tape and hard drives for cold archives, but for now, it sits firmly in the long-term preservation tier rather than everyday storage.
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Wayne Williams is a freelancer writing news for TechRadar Pro. He has been writing about computers, technology, and the web for 30 years. In that time he wrote for most of the UK’s PC magazines, and launched, edited and published a number of them too.
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