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3.5 inch SSDs - market, vendors and products

stagecoach image for 3.5" SSDs
3.5" SSD - editor mentions
.. Megabyte combined modern horsepower
with traditional storage values..
SAS SSDs - from OCZ - Talos C Series
3.5" SAS SSDs
Talos C Series - from OCZ
..
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How popular is the 3.5" format for SSDs? - by Zsolt Kerekes, editor
It has declined. 6 years ago it was the most popular form factor out of the hard disk sizes. Nowadays - in 2012 - 3.5" SSDs are below the top 20 SSD directories viewed monthly by our readers.

Although 3.5 inch form factor SSDs are a niche market - historically this form factor revealed a lot about the different types of application for high performance storage drives in legacy servers. In the 3.5" package we used to find hard disks, hybrid drives, flash based SSDs and even RAM SSDs competing for slots, often with exactly the same interfaces. You can see some examples of current and past 3.5" SSDs below. For other form factors see the listings in the Solid State Disks Buyers Guide
image shows industrial SSDs  from  BiTMICRO - click for more info
industrial grade SSDs
from the pioneers in SSD technology - BiTMICRO

Notes from SSD market history

The product shown below, from Mtron (which is no longer in business) was the most popular product here on StorageSearch.com in the period August 2007 to October 2007.
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SATA flash SSDs with 150M bytes / sec burst read and 80M bytes / sec sustained write time from MTRON
3.5" (128G) & 2.5" (32G) SATA SSDs
80MB/s sustained write
from Mtron

Notes from SSD market history

The product shown below, from Imperial Technology (which is no longer in business) is an example of a 3.5" parallel SCSI SSD featured here on StorageSearch.com in June 2002.
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MegaRam-35 solid state disk from Imperial Technology - click for more info
MegaRam-35 - 3.5" SCSI SSD
from Imperial Technology

Notes from SSD market history

The product shown below, from Memtech (acquired by STEC in 2005) is an example of a 3.5" PATA SSD product featured here on StorageSearch.com in 2004 - the AT3550 Wolverine.
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low profile, high capacity  3.5" IDE military temperature range solid state disks from Memtech
3.5" low profile IDE
mil temp solid state disks
from Memtech

Notes from SSD market history.

BiTMICRO was one of the earliest companies to talk realistically about deploying flash SSDs in the enterprise SSD market - and published articles and case studies supporting this view. In a 2004 case study BiTMICRO showed how a single 3.5" flash SSD speeded up a 25,000 user server by 15x compared to the previous hard disk system.

The BiTMICRO ad (below) shows an SSD which the company started shipping in November 2008 and advertised here in 2009.
click to see details of historic product - 3.5 inch fibre-channel flash SSDs from  BiTMICRO Networks
3.5" FC flash SSDs - from BiTMICRO
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3.5 inch SSD OEMs
manufacturer
A-DATA
Adtron
Altec ComputerSysteme
BiTMICRO Networks
Curtis
Density Dynamics
DTS
Foremay
Hagiwara Sys-Com
Imation
KingFast
MemoCom
Myung
OCZ
Pliant Technology
PQI
Red Rock Technologies
RunCore
SMART Modular Technologies
STEC
Super Talent Technology
Trident Space & Defense
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Notes from SSD market history.

M-Systems (acquired by SanDisk) pioneered the use of SSDs in smart phones and in 2001 introduced the first SSD chips.

They were also involved the military and enterprise SSD markets - and in 2003 M-Systems was one of the first flash SSDs to get Solaris ready status.

They advertised here for several years. The archived ad below dates from November 2003.
M-Systems, 3.5" Ultra Wide SCSI Fast Flash Disk
3.5" Ultra Wide SCSI Fast Flash Disks
from M-Systems
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click for more info - XceedIOPS SSD
1.8", 2.5" SATA / SAS flash SSDs
XceedIOPS - from SMART
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Fusion-io fast SSDs - click for more info
world's fastest production PCIe SSD
from Fusion-io
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Imprinting the brain of the SSD
Editor:- how did the SSD market ever change from:- Who cares? to You care! about the identity of SSD controllers?

It all happened so quickly that we now assume it was always this way.
click to read the case study - about the SandForce Driven program This MarketingViews case study compares SandForce's SSD processor branding program with previous examples in chip history and analyzes key business success factors. ...read the article
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.... Notes from SSD market history

The product below - a RAM SSD from Curtis - was featured on StorageSearch.com's main SSD news page in the years from 2003 to 2007.

It was the world's fastest 3.5" SSD during that period. The original device was still faster than 90% of 3.5" SSDs in the market in 2010 too.
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worlds fastest 3.5 inch solid state disk from Curtis
world's fastest 3.5" solid state disk
from Curtis

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