Microsoft killing HDD boot drive off by 2023: welcomes all-SSD world

If video killed the radio star, then Microsoft is killing the mechanical HDD as a boot option to Windows 11... at least according to data storage industry analyst firm Trendfocus.

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A new report says that OEMs have said that Microsoft is pushing OEMs to not support HDDs as the primary storage device in pre-built Windows 11 PCs, using much faster SSDs in their place. Microsoft has plans to do this by 2023, so we should expect the world of all-SSD PCs of the future by next year.

Windows 11 minimum requirements from Microsoft are for a "64GB or larger storage device" right now, but this will most likely change when Microsoft makes the big change to drop HDDs as the primary storage option on pre-built PCs with Windows 11. At the moment: Microsoft DirectStorage and the Windows Subsystem for Android both require an SSD, but those features aren't forced on you... you can use a HDD and not use those features.

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Trendfocus Vice President John Chen told Tom's Hardware: "The original cut-in date based on our discussions with OEMs was to be this year, but it has been pushed out to sometime next year (the second half, I believe, but not clear on the firm date). OEMs are trying to negotiate some level of push out (emerging market transition in 2024, or desktop transition in 2024), but things are still in flux".

Microsoft on the other hand, "has nothing to share on this topic at this time".

This isn't shocking... most people are using SSDs now, especially as the boot drive. You don't need some super-fast, next-gen PCIe 5.0-based SSD but even a basic 2.5-inch SATA SSD is world's better than a mechanical HDD. Microsoft knows this, we know this, OEMs know this.