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| SiliconDrive
Blade Gets Editor Award in Electronic Design Magazine |
Editor:- January
13, 2009 - SiliconSystems
announced that its
SiliconDrive Blade
has been selected as a "2008 Best
Electronic Design" technology of the year winner in the embedded small
form factor category.
The awards are chosen by the editorial staff
of Electronic Design magazine from
announcements they have received during the year. Editor
Bill Wong
cited SiliconDrive Blade's innovative design as a necessary development in
accelerating wide-spread adoption of
SSDs in embedded systems.
See also:-
SSDs on a chip,
industrial SSDs
Seagate Maintains the 3.5" HDD Flow for Market Laggards
Editor:-
January 13, 2009 - Seagate
today announced 2 new models in its
Cheetah
3.5" hard disk range.
Now sampling, Cheetah 15K.7 - is Seagate's
highest performance HDD. It spins at 15K RPM and has upto 600GB capacity with a
SAS or
FC interface.
Now
shipping, Cheetah NS.2 - is aimed at power sensitive applications. It spins at
10K RPM and has upto 600GB capacity.
"External storage system
OEMs continue to consume the majority of 3.5" performance-optimized HDDs
shipped each quarter, whereas server manufacturers consumed nearly all of the
2.5" performance-optimized HDDs that shipped in 2008," according to
John Rydning,
IDC's research director for
hard disk drives. "Seagate's new 3.5" Cheetah disk drives with up to
600GBs of capacity will fill a critical need for both its customers and end
users looking to extend the life of existing external storage system platforms."
Editor's comments:- when technology markets approach the end
of their market life, they can be more profitable for vendors than products in
newer more competitive markets. The 2.5" form factor is likely to be less
profitable for a hard disk oem right now - because the performance end of the
market is getting pressure from over 40 manufacturers of
2.5" SSDs in
addition to traditional HDD
oems. So although you may have read elsewhere forecasts predicting the end
of 3.5" hard drives - in a recession - there could still be a sweet spot in
this market.
See also:-
How will the hard
drive market fare... in a solid state storage world?
Dave Hitz Publishes Bio
Editor:-
January 12, 2009 - NetApp's founder, Dave Hitz has written an
autobiography called - How To Castrate a Bull.
It's published
tomorrow. ...order
the book, ...Network
Appliance profile,
Animal Brands
in the Storage Market, Storage
People
New Edition - the Top 10 SSD OEMs
Editor:- January 10, 2009
-
StorageSearch.com today published a new edition of - the Top 10 SSD
OEMs.
Based on storage search volume in Q4 2008 - the ranking is
the most reliable indicator and predictor of future success in the fast growing
SSD market. The article includes a market commentary and summary of movements
in the past quarter. The 7th quarterly edition of
this series is
eagerly anticipated by users and vendors alike. ...read the article
RMI Chip Aims at Consumer NAS Market
Cupertino, CA - January
9, 2009 - RMI Corp announced the availability of a comprehensive
reference design kit for the SMB NAS Market.
The solution is based
on RMI's XLS Processor, a dual-core multi-threaded SoC which, the company says,
supports outstanding networking performance, a rich feature set, and flexible
interface options, allowing customers to quickly release a powerful solution for
multimedia NAS applications. ...RMI profile,
storage chips |
|
| Toshiba
Announces Groundbreaking 2.5" SAS SSDs |
IRVINE,
Calif. - January 8, 2009 - Toshiba announced it will start volume
production of dual port SAS interface SLC flash SSDs in Q2 2009.
The
2.5" SSDs will
have 100GB capacity, and 25,000 read IOPS, and 20,000 write IOPS. ...Toshiba profile
Editor's
comments:- One of the enabling factors for the high write IOPS is the use
of a non-volatile cache - which was predicted in StorageSearch.com's article
- the Flash SSD
Performance Roadmap. This brings the number of oems who have announced
SAS SSDs to 6. See
SSD Buyers Guide
table for the full list. We'll publish a dedicated SAS SSD guide later this
month.
pureSilicon Unveils Terabyte 2.5" SSD
Editor:-
January 8, 2009 - according to a news report on
Marketwire
- pureSilicon is
sampling the highest density
2.5" SSD - with
1TB capacity in a 9.5mm high form factor.
Sustained read / write
performance is said to be 240MB/s and 215MB/s respectively. The
SATA SSD has latency
under 100 µsec and is rated at 50,000 read IOPS, and 10,000 write IOPS.
The
company emerged from stealth mode in October 2008 as a
military storage oem -
but the new products could find a much bigger market in commercial servers. I
asked if compression was involved in achieving the capacity - but was told - no.
Internally it's got 128 pieces of 64Gb MLC NAND.
SanDisk Offers Cheap Fast SSDs for Q3 Notebooks
CES,
LAS VEGAS - January 8, 2009 - SanDisk Corp today unveiled a new family
of 1.8" and 2.5" MLC flash SSDs that will ship in mid 2009.
SanDisk's
G3 Series
will have capacities (and anticipated MSRPs) as follows:- 60GB ($149), 120GB
($249 ) and 240GB ($499). Anticipated sequential performance is quoted as:-
200MB/s read and 140MB/s write.
"Web-Feet Research has tested the
replacement of the HDDs in 3 year old Notebooks with SSDs and has found an
improvement in boot times, application loading and general user responsiveness
that, in many cases, exceeds what a new notebook with an HDD can deliver,"
said Alan Niebel, Principal at
Web-Feet Research. "In
these challenging economic times, IT managers are looking for ways to reduce IT
spending without adversely affecting their user base and the SanDisk G3 SSD
solution extends the notebook replacement cycle an additional 2 years at minimal
cost." ...SanDisk
profile, 1.8"
SSDs, 2.5"
SSDs
Editor's comments:- SanDisk doesn't quote an
IOPS figure for these new SSDs preferring instead to quote a proprietary
40,000 virtualRPM to indicate how they
compare to
hard drives.
The soothsaying in this press release from Web-Feet
Research doesn't stand up to any realistic scrutiny. Upgrading your old notebook
with an SSD is only an economic proposition if you ignore the cost of the time
lost while the notebook is being upgraded - and also the time to perform the
upgrade. But it does convey a useful message about what SSDs can do for new
notebook performance - as described in my
SSD market
penetration model. |
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M.2 SSDs
hostage to the
fortunes of SSD
how fast can your SSD
run backwards?
How did we get into
such a mess - with SSD software?
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| Choosing words which make
your SSD product name sound good is an important challenge for SSD marketers.
And using inanimate words which suggest Power, Speed and Strength for your SSD -
enables you to draw on a much wider set of cultural references than just
limiting yourself to animals. But take care that your customers understand them
too! |
Metaphors in SSD brands
inanimate Power, Speed and Strength
(examples from the market) | | |
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| How do you recognize a
military SSD? After 30 years of contact with MIL electronics customers and
designers I find that easy. So I thought I'd try to compile a simple list
of military SSD companies. |
| here's
why I failed | | |
| . |
| Flashbacks
from
Storage History |
1 year ago -
Nanochip Aims
to Trash Flash
- Nanochip said it was developing a new class of ultra-high-capacity non
volatile storage chips. Nanochip said its first products could exceed 100GB per
chip set, reaching terabytes in the future, and at a substantially lower cost
compared with flash memory solutions.
...Later:- the number of alternative non-volatile memory technologies
which have claimed they will beat flash (one day) is close to double digits.
Some of these have found niche applications in low density applications - but
it's cold out of the incumbator. None of these technologies have yet made it as
far as the consumer shelf.
2 years ago -
First
Terabyte Hard Drive - HGST was the first to announce TB HDDs. Initial
pricing was $399.
...Later:- all the main
HDD oems followed with
their own TB drives. In 2008 the biggest shipping drives were:-
- 3.5" - 1.5TB - from Seagate
- 2.5" - 500GB - from various oems
- 1.8" - 250GB - from Toshiba
3 years ago -
Maxell
Announces DVD that will Endure - Maxell said that the surface of its
DVD-RPRO disks was 40x more scratch resistant and 20x more dust resistant than
standard DVD media.
...Later:- DVDs lost the high definition optical
format war to Blu-ray in 2008. One of the problems with all "long life"
removable storage media is that eventually it becomes impossible to buy drives
that will read the archived data. Just as true for
optical drives as it was
for tape.
5 years ago -
Toshiba
Introduces World's Smallest Hard Drive - Toshiba's 0.85" hard disk
drive was the first to deliver multi-gigabyte storage in a sub-one-inch form
factor.
...Later:- today the
miniature storage drive
market includes nearly 20 manufacturers.
8 years ago -
M-Systems
Introduces World's Smallest 16MB Single-Chip Flash SSD - This was the
first product containing both the flash memory and controller in a single
48-pin Thin Small Outline Package (TSOP).
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