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Report: Tough Times Ahead for SSD Storage

Despite a slew of announcements from vendors such as EMC , Sun, and HDS, solid-state disk (SSD) technology faces a tougher battle than expected displacing traditional hard disk drives (HDD).

This is the message from analyst firm Citigroup, which revised its initial note on SSDs and HDDs that it put out a year ago. Todays research, which comprises both computing and enterprise SSD deployments, paints a much more cautious picture of a much-hyped technology.

”We remain cautious on dramatic SSD encroachment in computing devices through 2009 (excluding notebooks) due to cost, performance, and reliability/durability,” explained Citigroup analyst Craig Ellis, in the note released today. “[But] enterprise storage product development has occurred slightly faster than originally expected.”

The last few months have seen more and more storage vendors jumping on the SSD bandwagon, touting, in particular, much faster speeds for data access.

Despite all the vendor hyperbole and analyst predictions for SSDs, Citigroup warns that that the technology is no high-speed silver bullet.

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