Cloud storage not a threat: Transcend

With the advent of cloud storage, the future of portable storage devices has been questioned. Taiwan based Transcend feels in 2013 USB 3.0 demand will eclipse that of the older and speed-limited USB 2.0 interface. In the portable hard drive arena, the company expects to see higher performance USB 3.0 drives with increased capacities of up to 2.0 TB.

Speaking on the current trend Gordon Wu, regional head, South Asia, Transcend said, "Consumers are in the hunt for more affordable high-capacity yet compact USB flash drives, and as such, we expect to see an increase in demand for 64 GB and 128 GB models. However, capacity and speed are no longer the only desirable features of USB flash drives."

When asked will cloud storage impact the market of portable storage devices, he said, "An increasing number of photo and music files that were previously saved on portable storage devices have been relocated to online cloud storage, where users can now view, listen, organize and share them more efficiently. However, this new storage resource does not spell the demise of the portable storage industry, as cloud storage capacity is limited and expensive."

He also added, "Monthly or annual payment requirements will prevent users from storing large amounts of data online, and their pictures, music and other media files must be heavily compressed before uploading to the cloud. With online storage only containing the compressed versions of their files, users will turn to increasingly high capacity external storage devices for keeping high-quality original copies of their photos, videos or audio backups."

Portable storage device capacity has expanded to the point where USB flash drives are only about $0.50 per GB and portable hard disk drives have dropped well below $0.10 per GB, making these much more cost-effective for storing large files that do are impractical to store in the cloud. Additionally, with online storage being more public in nature (picture and video sharing, etc), the type of data kept on personal storage devices is becoming more personal or sensitive. For this reason, personal storage devices with robust designs and advanced security features will gradually expand from niche product status to a more serious mainstream buying choice.