If you're a newcomer to
the SSD market you might get the impression that SATA SSDs ARE the SSD
market!
It's certainly true that nearly half of the
200 companies making SSDs
do offer SATA models. But the
SSD market is much
bigger than the SATA SSD market - and
existed long
before SATA
became a standard.
The SATA SSD market is important - because
by offering a like for like comparison with hard drives - in form factors like
3.5", 2.5" etc it showed server makers that the days of HDDs were
numbered.
I often get asked - What's that number? How many days?
It depends on your business application, the cost benefits of
performance, electrical power, reliability etc. Depending what market you're in
- SSDs are already the most economic option - or will be at sometime before
2015. For more SSD
clairvoyancy see the SSD
analysts page.
2007 was the
1st time that SATA SSDs left HDDs in the dust when it came to performance - at
the same time as offering usable capacity to replace SSDs in popular
applications. My Flash
SSD Performance Roadmap showed there was more to come, and sure enough as
predicted...
In 2010 - some SATA 3 SSDs already offer
500MB/s throughput and 60K IOPS random performance. While others offer the
same capacity as the
biggest 2.5" hard drives. (Although not yet the same
price.)
charting the rise the SATA SSD market
In 2004
- when
StorageSearch.com conducted the
industry's first
SSD Buyer Preferences
Survey 53% said that SATA compatible SSDs would suit their
applications best. At that time there were no SATA SSDs in the market.
SSD oems took heed of these results and by the end of 2005 there
were 4 SSD manufacturers offering SATA.
This had grown to 11 at the
end of 2006 and rapidly accelerated in the following years to 30+ companies by
the end of 2008
and 80+ companies by the 3rd quarter of 2010. |
