Storage formats aren't short-lived in the way CPUs and GPUs are; they last for decades, not years. Yet, when you zoom out and look at the storage types that have become obsolete, irrelevant, or downright inconvenient in 2025, there are quite a few on the list. At the same time, some old storage types still have their uses, such as USB flash drives, external hard drives, microSD cards, eMMC storage, SATA SSDs, and Blu-ray discs. There are four storage types, however, that dropped out of the zeitgeist years ago.

CDs and DVDs

I still have my collection

The humble Compact Disc, or CD, was once the dominant storage format in the 90s and 2000s before streaming displaced everything else in the 2010s. The DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) became the default storage for home video in the late 90s and mid-2000s. Thanks to their convenience and storage capacity, CDs and DVDs replaced older storage types like vinyl, cassette, and VHS. For a '90s kid like me, who only knew CDs and DVDs before flash drives and external hard drives took over, I miss the simplicity and physicality associated with optical media.

While the 700MB capacity of the CD was overtaken by the spacious 4.7GB capacity of standard, single-layer DVDs, standard Blu-ray discs left DVDs in the dust with their 50GB maximum capacity. This is why Blu-ray remains relevant while CDs and DVDs are all but extinct. Collectors of physical media appreciate the higher capacity and, consequently, the quality of uncompressed movies on Blu-ray discs. And physical games still ship on Blu-ray discs. There has been a slight uptick in CD and DVD sales of late, but it's too soon to say if it's a lasting trend.

Solid-State Hybrid Drives (SSHDs)

The "fusion" that didn't last very long

The SSHD was a curious stopgap between the waning hard drive and expensive solid-state drive. They were pitched as the perfect solution for people who wanted the capacity of a hard drive without the then-prohibitive cost of an SSD. However, these SSHDs were always more HDD than SSD. The performance boost compared to pure hard drives was only around 2x, while SATA SSDs were around 5x faster than hard drives. For most people, SSHDs were always too expensive for what they offered.

People could just combine a cheaper and capacious hard drive with a tiny SSD for installing their OS, and call it a day. SSHDs couldn't remain relevant for very long, being phased out of production a mere eight years after they started becoming popular around 2012. As SSD prices started falling, even the slim niche that SSHDs had created started disappearing. People were simply buying SATA or NVMe SSDs and skipping SSHDs altogether. In 2025, you'll struggle to buy an SSHD — there's no reason you should even try.

M.2 SATA SSDs

Kinda pointless in 2025

While 2.5" SATA SSDs are still very relevant for gaming and use in home labs, their M.2 counterparts are simply unnecessary. For users who have a spare M.2 slot on their motherboard, buying an NVMe SSD is a no-brainer. These drives are significantly faster than M.2 SATA drives without even costing more. The value proposition for combining the convenient M.2 form factor with the more affordable SATA interface worked for a while, but it soon became pointless as M.2 NVMe SSDs took over.

Hard drives (as primary storage)

Move to an SSD already

Conventional hard drives are a stubborn bunch, refusing to die even in 2025. While they're a mainstay on NAS devices and write-heavy NVR systems, where cost per TB and reliability trumps everything else, SSDs have firmly overtaken HDDs elsewhere. The outdated read/write speeds, heavy form factor, and large footprint have given way to the convenience, performance, and affordability of SSDs (at least for popular capacities like 1TB and 2TB).

If you're still using an HDD for your OS and running modern games, you're missing out on one of the best upgrades anyone can make to their PC. An SSD will completely transform the way you use your system, from the boot time and game loading times to the overall responsiveness of the PC. Hard drives are still fine for secondary storage, backups, and archival data, but as far as primary storage goes, they were outclassed by SSDs years ago.

Which storage type comeback are you wishing for?

The relentless march of technology is indifferent to even the most popular storage formats, but some of them can return from the dead. For instance, the slight resurgence of physical media like CDs and DVDs might snowball into a renaissance that's hard to imagine right now. On the other hand, some old storage types like hard drives remain relevant even now, albeit for different purposes. Lastly, stopgap solutions like SSHDs and M.2 SATA SSDs met an expected early demise as they were replaced by better yet affordable alternatives.