WD, DCC bullish on green storage

Western Digital (WD) and its local distributor Drive Control Corporation (DCC) are expanding their green storage business in Africa.

The companies identified their roadmap in coming months during the national road show; which took place in Johannesburg, Gauteng, Durban and Cape Town this month.

WD's recently appointed sales manager for Benelux and SA, Barber Brinkman, says: “2010 is going to be a significant year in terms of product development and our focus on environmentally friendly solutions that deliver significant energy savings to businesses across the globe.”

Brinkman, based in the Netherlands, told ITWeb that WD will focus on green solid state drives (SSD) that consume 40% less energy than traditional disc-based drives.

“We are going to expand towards the long-term future and will be looking at online sales possibilities. Our goal is to grow 30% market share in SA and we are focusing on our green drives, and on our 2.5-inch mobile drives.”

Brinkman says WD is looking for integration partners globally and in SA. “SA is a fast developing country and we want to increase our global total market share by 40%, combining our component and retail business.”

He adds it will roll out three of its latest green SSD drives to the South African market in the second half of 2010.

According to DCC, WD's Caviar Green internal drives have a technology called advanced format, which enables more data to be written on the hard drive. The company claims the drive's power saving equates to a reduction of 13.8kg of carbon dioxide; equivalent to taking a car off the road for three days a year.

Vassen Naicker, WD product specialist at DCC, says not only are the green SSD drives energy efficient, they are resilient against data loss. With no moving parts, SSDs are less fragile than hard discs and also silent with low latency. However, SSD is expensive for the average user.

Naicker says: “SSD is going to eventually take over hard disc drives, and pricing will be driven down as demand increases. In two-and-a-half years, all notebooks will have SSDs integrated in them. There are no working parts, so it uses significantly less power and this will be beneficial to businesses facing rising electricity hikes and trying to cut costs.”

Analyst firms IDC and Forrester Research predict an upturn in IT spending in 2010 and data storage solutions is one of the sectors likely to be leading the way.