Market Focus
Peaceful co-existence
The hard disk drive is the king of storage, the solid state drive is the aspirant to the throne. So is one going to lose out to the other or will they carve out their own separate domains?
By Priyanka Chowdhury
 Solid State Drives (SSDs) might still be in their nascent stage, but ever since they were launched in the consumer segment two years ago demand has been picking up. The recent acquisition of SSD manufacturer SiliconSystems by Western Digital proves that organizations are realizing the vast opportunities in this segment and are looking to get a piece of the pie.
Indeed, the entry of Intel into the SSD segment is another strong indication that SSDs could sooner or later replace HDDs in PCs.
According to a survey by researcher iSuppli, in 2007 the shipment of SSDs touched 84,000 units at the average price of $274, and had a marketshare worth $23 million. By 2011, iSuppli expects SSD shipments to hit 55 million units with a marketshare worth $5.6 billion.
Says M A Mannan, Country Manager, Corsair, “While the SSD is still at an early stage, it is expected to capture 15 percent of the market by 2010. The declining cost of NAND flash memory will eventually translate into lower price points for SSDs. SSDs will be cheaper than HDDs in the lower capacity segment by the end of 2009. We expect that by 2010 all netbooks will be using 64 GB SSD whose prices will be at par with entry-level HDD prices.”
Agrees Nathan Su, Product Manager, Kingston, APAC, “The inflection point is expected to be reached when SSDs reach a price of $1.5 per GB, and this is expected to happen toward the end of 2009 or early next year. Currently, the cost per GB is $2.5 for SSD and $0.2 for HDD.”
Growth drivers
Analysts say that the three emerging markets for SSDs will be ultra low-cost notebooks, standard notebooks and PCs, and enterprise servers.
With the success of the netbook, small form factor PCs have become the hot favorite now, which in turn has led to the emergence of sleeker, smaller and ultra-portable versions of the notebook. This has led to an increase in the demand for low-density SSDs like 32 GB and 64 GB.
Says Manisha Sood, Country Manager, Sandisk, “Gartner predicts that more than half of the netbooks shipped in 2009 will have SSDs instead of HDDs. Nearly 13 million netbooks are expected to ship in 2009.”
However Rajesh Khurana, Country Manager, Seagate believes that it’s the enterprise segment that will drive adoption of SSDs in the near future. “Analysts’ claims that SSDs will do well due to the high-growth netbook category haven’t come true. A large number of netbooks today come with HDDs. We, in fact see SSDs having more value in the enterprise computing space. SSDs will grow in environments where the highest transactional performance is most important, and the cost-per-gigabyte of SSDs make sense. Seagate therefore believes that the SSDs’ real opportunity at this stage is in the enterprise computing space.”
No threat to HDDs
Although many believe that SSDs can become a threat to HDDs, so far this has not happened. This is mainly because most notebook manufacturers have continued to focus on the HDD as the storage device of choice. IDC estimate merely 2 percent volume penetration for SSDs compared to HDD shipments, by 2012.
Khurana believes that “SSDs will not cannibalize HDDs, but will rather co-exist over a long period of time. The deployment of SSDs will likely spur additional growth in HDDs and increase the overall demand for storage used in new applications and devices. In consumer space, SSDs are more of a complementary solution addressing the lower capacity and mobile spaces such as MP3 players and mobile phones. It is also complementary to HDDs as the content stored on consumer products is eventually backed up on an HDD.”
“SSDs come with higher speeds and better reliability. SSDs have received good response in the mobile market, where reliability and stability are of great importance. But for the desktop, the HDD will rule for some years to come,” says Nathan.
Limitations and challenges
Since SSDs are newer, the maximum capacity of these drives is 250 GB, compared to 1 TB for current hard drives. Some SSDs have a limited number of write cycles, a figure that can be easily reached on very active machines. SSDs are much more expensive than hard drives, and the price difference between the two technologies remains wide. Since India is still a price-conscious market, it will definitely take some time for widespread adoption of SSDs to begin here.
According to analysts, the SSD market is due for a shake-out because more than 50 companies are already competing in the space. Hard drive vendors like Seagate also face challenges. Analysts say that hard drive makers are not sure where this SSD momentum is going to stop, and are concerned about losing a piece of the 2.5-inch drive business.
Multiple opportunities
SSDs are expected to be incorporated in many other segments such as TVs, console games, cars and refrigerators. They would have different uses, and manage a lot of functions such as temperature control. The gaming industry runs on flash, and flash cards store their games. LCD screens also have flash cards inside them.
Many SSD vendors like Kingston and Corsair expect to see wide acceptance in the system builder channels. Says Nathan, “These channels will definitely be a good intermediary to provide SSD devices to consumers.” Adds Mannan: “It is essential that SSDs be properly projected through these channels for greater volumes. 2010 will probably see huge acceptance in the channels.”
The future of SSDs looks bright. Adoption will be measured and happen first in market segments like enterprise storage, high-end PCs, power users that can afford the premium associated with SSDs. Later, with advancements in technology and lower prices, there will be newer opportunities for SSDs. |