HGST had 2009 disk storage revenues of $4.8 billion and sees 2011 as the critical point for maturity and adoption of SSDs. So announcing now and ramping up production early next year means the timing is right, it says.
The enterprise SSD market is being fueled by the need for faster storage solutions and improvements in high throughput and I/O performance to address social networks, mobile applications, web TV, online video services and new tablet-like devices - all operating in the cloud. IDC adds that data centers are pushing the boundaries to make storage more efficient, from reducing floor space, power and cooling to leveraging next-generation technologies, like virtualization, deduplication and thin provisioning.
Handy sees the Intel component as critical to HGST's success. "Intel has developed quite a name for themselves in the client SSD space.
They have an excellent controller design that outperforms most, if not all, other SATA drives. I don't think any other company could do what Intel did: they assembled a crack team of their platform architects who carefully analyzed how HDDs are accessed by the system. With this understanding, and with knowledge of NAND flash unique to NAND suppliers, they optimized the NAND chips' interaction with the whole system -- hardware and software. By adding FC and SAS interfaces Hitachi is allowing OEMs to tap into this superior architecture for the enterprise market."
That's no guarantee for success, says IDC's Jeff Janukowicz, research manager for solid state drives. A number of SSD companies have entered the enterprise SSD segment but only a few vendors have found success to date. "Today, STEC is the leading vendors for SAS/FC SSD in the market. However, we also see a number of other companies actively shipping in Enterprise like Intel, Samsung, NetApp (who makes there own SSD called Flash Cache), Pliant, Fusion io, and SMART Module."
