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market research news & reports |
why the notebook SSD
crystal ball is murky
Editor:- September 1, 2010 - yesterday a
reader (Andrew Hancox) sent me a list of 10 key questions about the
future of the SSD market.
As I'd already answered most of them to
some degree in articles my reply was mostly a list of links.
His 1st
question was - "How long do you think it will be before the pricing of
SSDs comes down to a level where they are a viable option to be used as primary
drives in portable devices for mainstream consumers?"
I've been
answering that question in articles for 5 years - starting with my
SSD market
penetration model, numerous comments on the
notebook SSD
page, quotes from other
SSD analysts and
comments in past
news pages - but I've never been able to give a deterministic number because
there are parameters involved which depend on vendors in the market changing
their behavior.
Here's what I actually said in my email reply - "A
big obstacle is not media pricing - but how well the SSD design is integrated in
the notebook motherboard design. Nearly all current notebook designs are
adapted from HDD designs. Adding SSDs into them wastes most of the potential
benefits of the SSD. That's why this is taking years longer than it should
have done... "
Thinking back on my replies to readers I'm never
really sure how well they have been understood. That's because
SSD education is a
big issue. Now when I talk about "motherboard design" that's the
electronics and computer architect in me talking in a code language which
translates as - the design of most notebooks is a mismatch for getting the best
out of SSDs. Most notebook vendors are too lazy to design new SSD notebook
products - so instead they integrate me-too SSDs into me-too HDD-centric
notebook designs - to get results which fail to inspire anyone. Then they
complain that the market projections for SSD adoption in notebooks didn't come
true.
This morning I thought of a good analogy for what's been
happening in the notebook SSD market.
Imagine that Henry Ford - had
looked at the horse drawn carriage market and the internal combustion engine -
and had decided to design mechanical horses (powered by the new engines) which
were then coupled to a coach in the traditional way.
There you have
today's notebook market... From the viewpoint of the horseless carriage customer
it's an expensive novelty. The engine is whirring as fast as it can - but those
clippety cloppety legs in the mechanical horse can't run any faster. It's a
waste of horsepower and will never become a mass market. Just as most notebooks
today completely waste the potential of SSDs. How can you predict when notebook
marketers and designers will stop being stupid? That's where my crystal ball
fails.
40 million unit SSD market in 2015?
Editor:- August
17, 2010 - Objective
Analysis predicts that in 2015 nearly 40 million SSDs will ship
accounting for over
$7 billion in revenues.
"We have followed the same methodology as our earliest forecasts,
basing our projections upon interviews with prospective SSD customers. This led
to projections that should help participants benefit the most from this market,"
said Jim Handy, author of their new report unveiled today. "Although our
early forecasts were the most pessimistic in the industry, they have been the
most accurate."
2010 Memory market may reach $67 billion - says IDC
Editor:-
July 6, 2010 - IDC
forecasts
that revenues for the semiconductor memory sector (DRAM and
flash) will reach $66.7
billion in 2010.
SSDs - the big picture (for non-techies)
Editor:-
June 21, 2010 -
StorageSearch.com today
published a new article -
What's the big
picture message re SSDs?
If you often find yourself explaining
to your VC, lawyer or non technical BBQ guests why you spend so much time
immersed in SSD web pages - this may be the link they need.
SSD Markets and Apps - new report from Web-Feet Research
Editor:-
June 10, 2010 -Web-Feet
Research has published its 8th annual report on SSD Markets and
Applications ($7,500).
How
well is SSD adoption in the Client, Enterprise, and Commercial Markets
progressing?
What will be the challenges that will influence SSD
acceptance and adoption rates in these segments?
Although there is
plenty of coverage on SSDs in
blogs
and other
media,
WFR answers these important questions and differentiates its study by
providing a detailed analysis of the client, commercial and enterprise end use
markets for SSDs and incorporates the analysis of HDD storage for the same
competing end use markets.
Detailed forecasts for both SSD and hard
disk drive storage for these end use markets are provided. Also included are the
technical and implementation challenges facing SSDs with respect to: capacity,
reliability, density, operating temperature, and mechanical ruggedness as they
relate to flash component performance, cost and integration.
Editor's
comments:- I agree with the sentiment hinted at above by one of the
report's authors Alan Niebel
- that with thousands of blogs on the subject of SSDs - it's hard for newcomers
to this market to judge the provenance or terroir of the content they see.
The "SSD analyst" market is no different in that respect
to the SSD vendor market -
in being vulnerable to obfuscating froth percolating up from the
SSD market bubble.
That's why in my SSD
market research & analysts directory I've only listed a small number of
elect companies who - I am sure - have been looking into this market for a
long time. HDD shipments expected to double in 5 years
Editor:-
June 7, 2010 - Coughlin
Associates has published its 14th annual
HDD
Capital Equipment and Technology Report (pdf) (189 pages / $7,000).
Fueling
the need for more capex the authors anticipate that disk drive volumes will
more than double - from about 670M in 2010 to 1.4B in 2015 - and that
technology developments will result in 10TB 3.5"
HDDs and 1TB
1.8" drives.
will it work any better this time? - consumer bybrids
Editor:-
June 3, 2010 - Objective
Analysis published a new white paper -
Flash
Cache is Back (pdf) which says soon all computing platforms will employ
a cache layer between the
HDD and the
DRAM.
Author
Jim Handy says projections from
notebook SSD
makers that SSDs would already have replaced tens of millions of HDDs were over
optimistic and may "never happen". Instead he says a flash cache,
supported by a properly designed
SSD ASAP controller "will
provide near-SSD
performance at near-HDD
prices".
Early implementations of such flash cache schemes -
cited in the article - didn't work properly because... ...read
the article (pdf), ...read editor's
comments
DCIG publishes buyers guide - midrange storage array market
Editor:-
May 11, 2010 - DCIG
has published the
DCIG Midrange Array
Buyer's Guide (100+ pages) which contains product information on over 70
different midrange arrays from 20 storage providers.
DCIG says the
guide is intended to narrow down the playing field to develop a list of
competitive products that have comparable features to meet specific application
or business needs. Developed to be the go-to resource for IT professionals, the
guide provides direct comparisons of storage systems classified as midrange
arrays and delivers insight into the range of offerings available on the market.
New for 2010, the DCIG Midrange Array Buyer's Guide provides product
comparisons among the widest range of storage array options and identifies the
winners and losers across five categories, including FC/iSCSI,
FC only,
iSCSI only, hardware and
software.
Pricing ranges from $5,000 for 1 print copy - upto $20,000 which
includes:- internal distribution, 1 hour of analyst debriefing and marketing
citation rights.
enterprise SSD market growth will accelerate - says Objective
Analysis
Editor:- April 27, 2010 - Objective Analysis
has published a new 104 page market report -
Data
Centers Drive Major SSD Growth (
$5,000)
which concludes that "the stunning growth of
SSDs in enterprise servers
and storage systems is only going to get stronger."
The company
finds that the enterprise SSD market is likely to approach $4 billion in
revenues by 2015,
nearly 17x times that of 2009, while unit shipments will increase by
50x during that period to over 4 million units.
How does this
compare to other predictions?
Click here to
StorageSearch.com's directory of
recommended SSD analysts.
the Top 10 SSD oems - Q1 2010
Editor:- April 8, 2010
- StorageSearch.com today
published the 12th quarterly edition of
the top 10 SSD oems
- which includes rankings for the period January 1 to March 31, 2010.
Newcomers
to the list in this quarter include
Micron and
PhotoFast.
The
best predictor of future winners in an
SSD market which
currently numbers over 180 oems - this popular feature tracked
search volume for over 250,000 influential SSD readers in this quarter. See
who's in and why - ...read
the article
SSD Innovations - new report from Forward Insights
Editor:-
March 31, 2010 - Forward Insights
has announced imminent availability of a new report -
SSD Innovations
($4,499) - which explores key innovations to improve the
performance and
lifetime
of SSDs.
It
focuses on innovative solutions from major industry players such as
FusionIO,
Intel,
Pliant,
Sandforce,
SanDisk and
STEC for improving the
performance,
endurance
and reliability of
SSDs. An exploration of the evolution of application requirements in computing
applications, performance limitations of
flash-based storage
systems, trends and industry innovations is provided. In addition, innovative
SSD architectures
incorporating
new
memory technologies, external power supply and linked chain architectures
are investigated as future SSD development directions.
...Table of
Contents (pdf), SSD
Market Analysts
Web-Feet publishes flash market share report
Editor:-
March 30, 2010 - Web-Feet
Research has published a report -
Non Volatile
Memory Market Shares (2009) by Vendor ($2,500) - which segments component
shipments by memory type and vendor.
Web-Feet says the 2009
flash memory market was
worth $20.8 billion, only 2% more than 2008. The top 5 flash
vendors were:- Samsung,
Toshiba,
SanDisk,
Micron and
Hynix.
This way to the Petabyte SSD
Editor:- March 16, 2010
- in recent years flash
memory makers have made much more MLC than SLC flash memory to feed the
demand for consumer storage devices.
You'd be forgiven for getting the
impression that SLC is an endangered species - as
SSD controller
designers devize cunning ways to make the cheaper consumer flash live longer in
acceleration apps.
But in a new article published today -
SSDs - reaching for
the petabyte - I explain why SLC may see a resurgence in an entirely new
type of SSD device which may appear in the market in the future. And there are
no design tricks which can make MLC work
reliably in this
type of architecture.
StorageIO apologizes for the late delivery of this new
newsletter...
Editor:- February 25, 2010 - after 5 years being in
business - StorageIO
recently published the inaugural issue of their
Server and StorageIO
newsletter.
Marcoms guru, Carey Hedges founder of (UK
based)
H-N Marketing cautioned me when
I launched an ezine called MarketingViews
(in 1996) that most company newsletters rarely get past the 3rd issue due to
lack of commitment and resources by the original sponsors. I've observed the
core truth in that rule of thumb many times now.
But StorageIO's
newsletter should get past that milestone easily - because their founder - Greg Schulz - is a prolific
blogger, author of real printed books, and oft quoted
storage market savant /
soothsayer.
In Greg's introductory apologia - for not having done
this newsletter thingie sooner (I'm surprised he found the time anyway) - he
says - "In an age of social media including facebook, twitter, blogs and
video, some might ask the question of why a news letter?" ...read the article
to see how he answers that rhetorical question.
And if you're still
interested in that type of question - take a look too at this article -
Getting
the Message - by InfoCommerce Group - which wryly analyzes this dilemma in
the following vein:- "Email, Blogging, Linked-In etc. It seems that once
a popular messaging channel becomes too clogged with extraneous messages, a new
message channel emerges." | |
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