Linus Torvalds compares hard drives to Satan

Linus Torvalds is known as a person who does not hesitate to express his opinion in a categorical form. A year ago, he called SUSE Linux developers “idiots” for their approach to OS security, most recently he showed the finger of Nvidia.

Last week, Linus had a Q & A session with Slashdot readers and also told a lot of interesting things. For example, spoke out categorically against the use of HDD in a personal computer. Torvalds himself uses laptops and desktop PCs exclusively with SSDs.

One reader asked about storage systems: “Now the Ceph file system is on the rise, it has been included in the main core, what other innovations in storage systems (or at a low level) do you see in the future?”

Linus replied: “I actually I’m not an expert on storage systems, but I am engaged in supporting the kernel at a high level, so this question is better to ask someone else.

I just want to repeat my (personal) opinion on this issue once again: I think that rotating discs will repeat the fate of magnetic tape. “How I hate them, you can’t imagine.” The delays on rotating media are simply terrible, and I personally cannot force myself to use the computer in which these dirty pieces of rust are spinning.

Of course, maybe spinning plates are suitable for large NAS where large media files are stored (or in a cloud storage cluster that you access on the network and for which disk access delays are secondary), but on a real computer? Phew! Satan, come out!

"I did not answer the question that you asked, but I really do not share all this excitement around storage systems."