Pundits tout SSD market growth

The majority of analyst and research firms agree that the solid state drive (SSD) market will witness phenomenal growth over the coming years.

The firms believe that, besides pricing, which has been a major inhibiting factor for SSD adoption, the dynamics in the PC market will continue to spur growth.

According to a recent IDC report, pricing remains a key metric for SSD adoption in both the client and enterprise markets. Nonetheless, the firm expects worldwide SSD shipments to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 51.5% from 2010 to 2015.

The research firm also anticipates that client SSD prices will fall below $1 per gigabyte in the second half of 2012, which will boost adoption in the PC market.

According to IDC, there are a number of dynamics influencing the PC market, from the growth in media tablets and ultrabooks, to the upcoming introduction of Windows 8 and increased use of caching solutions such as dual drives (systems containing both an SSD and an HDD).

Therefore, it believes the net effect of these dynamics supports increased SSD shipments.

Meanwhile, Joseph Unsworth, research director at Gartner, believes the enterprise SSD market is poised for significant growth for the foreseeable future, as organisations begin to phase out traditional hard drives in favour of higher performing solid state storage.

“In 2011, the SSD market growth intensified, as adoption and competition increased in both the PC and data centre segments to reach a combined total of $5.8 billion. Enterprise organisations see the value in SSD technology; however, drive endurance outweighs the performance gains for many companies evaluating SSD solutions,” adds Unsworth.

According to an IHS iSuppli Storage Tracker Report, released in April, with a strong boost from ultrabooks, worldwide shipments of SSDs are set to increase by 165% in comparison with 2011.

The report notes that SSD shipments this year are expected to reach 45.9 million units, up from 17.3 million in 2011. By 2016, adds the report, SSD shipments will exceed 201.4 million units.

Storage solutions provider Kingston Technology's prediction is that, for the memory market, users can expect to witness a turning point related to the widespread use of SSDs in the second half of 2012.

Grant Rau, business development manager at Kingston Technology SA, points out that, today, digital storage is a basic convenience.

He says that with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) increasingly facing challenges in keeping their IT infrastructures up to date, as well as continuously developing it, the ideal storage solution would be SSD.

“Data needs to be stored somewhere where users can have easy access to it. The most popular solution for this purpose is the traditional hard disk drive (HDD), and more recently, SSDs,” says Rau.

Rau says SSDs have many positive features. “Most of them originate from the absence of moving parts, as SSDs store data on flash chips, which means the data is immediately readable.”

He explains that this creates advantages like lower energy consumption, faster data reach and higher reliability.

“Since there are no extra moving parts, an SSD needs less energy, therefore its environmental impact is lower and the battery operating time is enhanced by 30 minutes on average. Shorter waiting time is another advantage for systems using an SSD.

“The operating system starts up or shuts down in 30 seconds, and the programs and searches run significantly faster than in traditional systems, which are typically equipped with an HDD. This considerably enhances work efficiency.”

He also argues that SSDs are less likely to fail than traditional drives, pointing out that the breakdown rate is 4.9% in the case of HDDs, while it is only 0.5% for SSDs.

“Therefore, SSDs need to be replaced less often. An average home user moving 1.4GB of data each day would be able to use an SSD with a capacity of 64GB for about 43 years. In the case of a device with a capacity of 128GB, this figure doubles, meaning a life cycle of 86 years, and so on.

At the end of its life cycle, Rau says, an HDD stops working without the possibility of backing up valuable data, whereas an SSD remains readable - it simply becomes unwritable, thus users can save on the costs associated with external data backup.