It may not be pouring yet, but the rain is starting to set in on HDDs. After Fujitsu’s news just days ago that it’ll offer flash-based solid state drives (SSDs) in its two new LifeBook ultraportables, Hitachi announced that it’ll close one of its HDD plants in Mexico. For all the new technologies constantly hitting the market, old technologies do die hard–the new Dell laptop I’m now test-driving has a serial port in it, for crying out loud. So it’ll likely be some time before the HDD truly becomes a thing of the past. That said, Hitachi’s news can only be seen as another portent of what’s eventually in store for traditional hard drives. Technology Industry