Rotating computer hard drives are no longer used. —Ray Kurzweil

Created by gwern on 2010-10-27; known on 2020-01-01; judged wrong by JoshuaZ on 2020-01-01.

• gwern estimated 5% on 2010-10-27
• gwern said “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_made_by_Ray_Kurzweil#2020-2050” on 2010-10-27
• gwern said “hahaha. No – far too cheap to be replaced. they’ve survived how many decades now?” on 2010-10-27
• TheScholar estimated 60% and said ““There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom” Nine years is a long time…” on 2010-10-29
• JoshuaZ estimated 5% and said “Almost certainly they will still be in use. They might however be being phased out or only being used on older machines. ” on 2011-05-26
• TheScholar estimated 75% and said “I think that the intention behind this prediction was that rotating hdds will no longer be the mainstream default choice, reduced to use in a niche.” on 2011-07-20
• Unknowns estimated 1% on 2015-03-13
• two2thehead estimated 1% on 2016-04-21
• PseudonymousUser estimated 0% and said “going by Kurzweil’s literal wording, not some “mainstream default” interpretation” on 2016-04-21
• PseudonymousUser said “There are billions of these things and they’ll be spinning long past 2020 even if someone ships vastly cheaper/higher-capacity storage technology” on 2016-04-25
• Jayson Virissimo estimated 10% on 2016-05-23
• themusicgod1 estimated 9% and said “We’ll be arguing þis down to semantics if we have to but þere’s still at least one generation of spinning platters left, þat’ll hold off till at least 2018. By þen we’ll still be ‘using’ þem for anoþer ~2 years” on 2016-05-24
• pranomostro estimated 2% on 2019-01-08
• JoshuaZ   judged this prediction wrong on 2020-01-01.