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31st quarterly edition - based on market
metrics in Q4 2014
by
Zsolt Kerekes,
editor - StorageSearch.com - February 27, 2015
The Top
SSD Companies - researched and analyzed by StorageSearch.com - has
established a unique reputation within the
SSD industry for
detecting and predicting significant new business and technology transitions in
the SSD market.
You can read a little bit more about the 8 years track
record of this marketing ranking technology in my sidebar article (lower right
on this page) and a lot more in the
series overview.
Those articles will let you see for yourself - with the clarity
of hindsight - how quickly and accurately this series has captured advance
signals from the SSD market about future stars, correlated with upturns and
downturns in company revenue, and has been a rich barrel of pickings for
those who acquire
SSD companies.
But let's remember the reason you came here today.
The old reliable Top SSD Companies List - ranked by analyzing the search of
hundreds of thousands of SSD readers on StorageSearch.com in the 4th
quarter of 2014. Here it is. |
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Top SSD Companies - ©
StorageSearch.com
based on SSD search volume in the 4th
Quarter 2014
For more details about each company click on the compay
name. |
Same as before.
Today - as I write
this - Diablo is in the unenviable position of being at the center of a new
server based acceleration technology which is attracting huge interest from
those who can see opportunities in the latency zone which lies between
PCIe SSDs and
DRAM (the good thing) while
at the same time being prevented from shipping any further products (the bad
thing) pending the outcome of legal proceedings (or a settlement) with
Netlist - which claims
that a (seemingly insubstantial but) necessary enabler of Diablo's new SSD
platform may be using unlicensed interface design tricks for which Netlist
owns the patents.
But
throughout most of Q4 2014 - which is the period on which Diablo's ranking is
based - it was the good news rather than the bad news which attracted readers to
learn more about the company.
To give you an idea of the scale -
reader interest in Diablo was about 2.5x the level of the #2 ranked
company, and 11x the level of the #20 ranked company.
See
also:-
memory channel
SSDs, flash DIMMS,
MCS versus PCIe
SSDs
...Later:- in March 2015 - Diablo
announced
it had won a "decisive victory" in its
critical
court battle with
Netlist and in
April 2015 the preliminary injunction was dissolved.
Same
as before.
Best previous position - #1 in
2007 Q3.
Entered
the Top SSD Companies list -
2007 Q2 (1st
edition).
Most of the reader pull towards SanDisk in this quarter (Q4
2014) was still related to the products and technologies it acquired with
Fusion-io. But over
20% was due to interest in SanDisk's other enterprise software products.
To
put this into a competitive landscape context - SanDisk's software products in
their own right were getting about 50% more interest than any other
SSD software related ISV in this period.
I had long been curious to
know how SanDisk would handle the anomaly of having a
hybrid array system
(inherited from Fusion-io's acquisition of
NexGen Storage) in its
product mix. We got the answer shortly after the quarter ended - with the news
that NexGen had been spun off as an independent company to seek its own way
forward in the
enterprise
systems maze.
See also:-
SSD services,
SSD software ,
PCIe SSDs
Up 3 places.
Entered the Top SSD Companies list (as HGST) -
2013 Q3
This
is HGST's highest ranking in this series - which shows that if you acquire
enough enterprise related SSD companies which have done well in the Top SSD
Company lists (previously -
Virident and
STEC - followed in this
quarter by the momentous acquisition of
rackmount SSD
company - Skyera)
then you will own enough SSD IP and products to pull readers through to engage
with you too.
From an
SSD controller
architecture point of view HGST has demonstrated its preference for companies
which have big
and (latterly) complex
DSP based
architectures.
down
1 place
Best previous position - #2 -
2014 Q1 and
2014 Q2
Entered
the Top SSD Companies list (TMS an IBM Company) -
2012 Q4
In
October 2014 -
IBM inadvertently set the trend for a new fashion in press release messages
which has been followed by many others in the
rackmount SSD and
hybrid appliance markets
- when IBM said - "You don't need to worry about the endurance of our
FlashSystems."
Same as before.
Best previous position - #4 -
2012 Q2 and
2012 Q3
Entered
the Top SSD Companies list -
2010 Q2
In
this quarter OCZ
announced
a new consumer SSD channel in Europe - Currys
PC World - which has more than 500 stores across the UK and Ireland.
OCZ
also
announced
availability of a new consumer 2.5" SATA SSD - the
Vertex 460A.
Related
markets:- PCIe SSDs,
SATA SSDs
Up
12 places.
This is Micron's highest rank so far in the history of this
series.
Micron stood out for me in 2014 for not having acquired any
significant SSD companies.
Another thing which stood out for me and
which I commented on in a linkedin conversation in December - was that because
Micron doesn't have the type of strong sticky controller architecture and SSD
software which would make it easy to lock-in customers and bypass many of the
SSD companies it supplies to - Micron is a less threatening flash partner for
many enterprise SSD companies to work with.
We saw that assessment
being confirmed in Q1 2015 with strategic supplier agreements being announced
with both Seagate and
IBM.
Up 3 places from previous quarter.
Best previous position - #4 in
2013 Q1
Q4
2014 was Skyera's last hurrah in the Top SSD Companies list as Skyera got
acquired by HGST in mid
December.
How much difference will this make to HGST in the future?
In
my article -
Decloaking
hidden segments in the enterprise for rackmount SSDs - I mentioned that
there are some markets in which a simple,
low cost,
efficiently designed,
high capacity, white box style of rackmount SSD is now regarded as the lowest
level component for integration - in a similar way to which others might view a
single SSD drive or a server.
I think that if HGST avoids the
temptation of adding too many software frills to the Skyera boxes - which
would make them less attractive for embedded integrators - then they could form
the basis of an attractive 1U high capacity SSD building block which could
become a multi billion dollar product line.
Related articles and
markets:- Petabyte
SSDs, scary Skyera
Down 5 places from previous quarter.
Entered the Top SSD
Companies list - 2010
Q3
In
2014
there was a dramatic transformation for Seagate with respect to how it was
viewed in the SSD market - due to its acquisition of the SSD business of LSI.
Despite SSD search spikes related to that in
Q3-14 - Seagate
didn't make any significant SSD related announcements in Q4 - which probably
explains its drop in rank.
In
December 2014 -
an article written by analysts at Trefis.com
- discussed Seagate in this article -
A
Look at The SSD Market - Where Do Seagate and Western Digital Stand? -
which, among other things such as historic market share and partner linkages
which fleshed out the article also included this observation - "...it
is evident that the SSD market is not even close to the near duopoly enjoyed by
Seagate and Western Digital in the hard drive business."
You can
say that again.
Personally I think it's
less
helpful than you might think to extrapolate too much from the pre-SSD
market competitive behavior of storage companies into the SSDcentric future.
Nevertheless it can sometimes make for entertaining reading today as it did in
the past.
See also:-
hostages to the
fortunes of SSD,
How will the hard
drive market fare... in a solid state storage world?
Related
markets:- SSD controllers,
PCIe SSDs,
SAS SSDs,
consumer SSDs
Down 1 place.
Entered the Top SSD Companies list -
Q4 2013
Tegile
didn't make any significant product announcements in this quarter.
Later
- in Q1 2015 - a blog -
Hybrid
Storage Array Industry Social Landscape - by Don Jennings,
Senior VP - Lois Paul & Partners
comparing the noise levels on social media of various "similar"
companies - concluded that Tegile came in 2nd to
Nimble Storage.
However
- StorageSearch.com readers were 7x more interested in Tegile than in
Nimble
Which goes to show that different ways of assessing internet
based signals gives you different results.
It may also reflect the
lower interest attached to companies which are still attached more firmly to the
HDD part of their
hybrid storage IP.
Up
17 places.
This is the first appearance in this list for InnoDisk -
which is involved in both the
industrial and
rackmount SSD
markets.
"The customer really just wants a faster SSD with more
capacity" - said Charles
Tsai Senior Director - at Innodisk - when
talking to
me about the market for his company's 1u FlexiArray.
3 companies were too close to call and tied at #11
Down
4 places from previous quarter.
Entered the Top SSD Companies list -
2014 Q1
A3CUBE's
technology enables architecture way beyond legacy storage and SSD fabrics.
For
example - having data in a PCIe
SSD or NV DIMM
in an external server (another box in the same room) no longer precludes
that very same data being accessed by another server - with similar applications
latency, and R/W performance characteristics as if it were just another SSD
installed locally in the very same server - which is markedly superior to
GbE or
16GFC - while at lower cost
and better native transparency than
IB.
That's
a small part of what I wrote in a
story
in September 2014 after linking the synergistic thinking between
A3CUBE and Diablo -
based on my conversations with founders of both companies.
Related
articles:- RAM SSDs,
Are you ready to
rethink RAM?
Down 2 places from previous quarter.
Best
previous position - #2 in
2013 Q1,
2013 Q2 and
2013 Q3
Entered
the Top SSD Companies list -
2007 Q3
In
March 2015 - Violin
reported
financial results for its quarter - ended January 31, 2015. Revenue was $20.5
million - 27% lower than the year ago period.
If you strip
away the software which does so little to differentiate Violin from countless
other flash array companies - you'd still be left with a proven,
proprietary, big
SSD controller architecture based, fast rackmount SSD - which (while
being somewhat more expensive to build than others which use standard COTS
SSDs and different
flash) still has a role to play in some types of high performance, low
latency, shared storage applications.
The problem - is that the
implementation is more capable and more expensive than needed in most
applications in the market today. And you can't slow it down to make it cheaper.
I
began wondering last December - if the often commented on
segmentation
based, and marketing miss-positioning problems affecting the company - were
to raise questions about its viability operating as an independent entity -
who would still want to buy Violin? (the company) and why.
The crazy
answer I came to (based on
extreme
boundary analysis) is that it may still have value as a reference
architecture for a memory supplier (who doesn't yet own a rackmount SSD
business) for redeployment as a white box, simple high speed,
high availability,
platform.
Which is more than you can say about most of the companies
Violin competes with.
So there is enough value there - given another
rethink in marketing. (Or - as I've been saying for years - maybe with more
focused thinking.)
I'll be returning to the question of what happens
if you imagine enterprise SSD box vendors stripped away from their software in
a later blog.
Related markets:-
rackmount SSDs
Up 2 places.
In October 2014 I
commented on the growing number of educational white papers on
Virtium's
web site.
Virtium operates in the
industrial SSD
market - but I commented on a paper which I thought had a bearing on the
enterprise. I flagged this with the headline - NV + 0.4 DWPD @ 85C = V
Temperature
considerations in SSDs (pdf) includes some stark graphs and observations
about
data
retention - which you should be aware of - even if you're not (like
Virtium) in the
industrial market.
"This shows the dramatic effects that temperature has on data
retention for given workloads. For the same full drive writes (0.4
drive writes per day for 5
years), SSDs operated and stored at 85°C will only have 2 days of
data retention, whereas those drives at 40°C will have 1 year and
those at room temperature 25°C will exhibit characteristics of nearly 8
years of data retention."
2 companies were too close to call and tied at #14
Up 1
place from previous quarter.
Related markets:-
rackmount SSDs
In
the previous quarter Cisco was said to have temporarily suspended shipments of
the SSD product line it had acquired from WhipTail - due to reported technical
problems.
Those problems were still live issues in Q4 2014 - according
to a
blog
in CRN - which indicated that one area of concern was in the
operational experience of
high availability
- and the discovery of "single points of failure."
Down 3 places.
Related markets:-
PCIe switch chips,
PCIe fabric
PLX
continued its multi-year educational
program of articles, advocating the growing and distinct advantages of
PCIe interconnect and fabric methods - as superior alternatives to traditional
networks (such as GbE and IB) in an enterprise server world which has
already adopted PCIe
SSDs as the de-facto industry standard for low latency server based
storage. But Neither PLX nor Avago made any significant SSD related
announcements in Q4 2014.
Up
3 places.
In this quarter Microsemi didn't make any significant SSD
product announcements. But for those interested in rugged and secure electronic
devices - it did have a few things to say.
- Commenting on the
Rosetta
Spacecraft Mission - which had just completed a key objective in its 10
year, 4 billion mile mission - Microsemi
disclosed
that over 15,000 of its components (including FPGAs and other ICs as well as
discrete components) had been used to support the flight.
- Furthermore - on the subject of
FPGAs
(which are are the building blocks of many military and enterprise
flash controllers)
Microsemi
announced
a new range of ultra secure FPGAs with unclonable keys and active tamper
detectors.
Related markets:-
military SSDs
Down
3 places.
In November 2014 -
Foremay said it was
accepting orders for a high capacity - 8TB - 2.5" military SATA SSD.
Mass production was planned for Q1 2015.
Related markets:-
military SSDs,
industrial SSDs.
Down 6 places from previous quarter.
Best
previous position - #6 -
Q3 2013.
Entered
the Top SSD Companies list -
2012 Q4.
In
December 2014
- Pure Storage
announced
a new compatibility oriented marketing program called
FlashStack
Converged Infrastructure
(blog)
- whereby customers who also use Cisco and VMware in the same deployments as
their Pure storage boxes can choose to buy single call support services.
Related
markets:- rackmount
SSDs
Up 2 places.
Best previous position - #2 (2009 Q1, and
2007 Q1).
In
November 2014 -
Samsung acquired
Proximal Data
(an
SSD software company
in the enterprise caching
market).
Related markets:-
flash memory,
consumer SSDs,
PCIe SSDs,
industrial SSDs,
SAS SSDs,
SSDs on a chip
Down
4 places.
Best previous position - #15 (Q4 2013)
Entered
the Top SSD Companies list -
Q2 2012
In
December 2014
- Kaminario
announced
it had closed a $53 million financing round, bringing its total raised capital
to $128 million.
Kaminario later
disclosed
that its bookings in Q4 2014 were 2x the level of Q3 2014 - which necessitated a
further $15 million funding.
Related markets:-
HA SSDs,
rackmount SSDs
Up
1 place.
Best previous position - #5 (2008 Q4)
Entered
the Top SSD Companies list -
2008 Q4
Intel
did not make any significant SSD related announcements in this quarter.
Related
markets:-
2.5" SSDs,
SATA SSDs,
PCIe SSDs
Up
2 places.
Related markets:-
PCIe SSDs,
military SSDs,
SSD controllers.
Down 3
places.
Related markets:-
SSD controllers.
Same as before.
Best previous position - #5 -
2009 Q1
RunCore
has successfully adapted to being an important SSD supplier in niche
applications despite there being so many other competitors in the wider market.
You can read more about this in a new article -
RunCore SSD - what's the
picture now? - based on recent conversations with the company.
Related
markets:- military SSDs,
industrial SSDs,
PCIe SSDs,
consumer SSDs
re-entry
to the list.
Aspects of EMC's solid state storage business and some of
its so called "competitors" are discussed in my January 2015 blog -
"compared
to EMC" - the unreal positioning of many AFA startups.
who are the companies just below the top 25?
Marvell,
Memblaze and
Maxta were close - and
any one of them could be in the list next time.
Note:- Rankings above are based on analyzing the search activity of
over 300,000 SSD readers on StorageSearch.com in the 3 months period ending
December 31, 2014.
The rankings above are based on multiple types of search and
browsing activity - and after filtering out unreliable and fake searches
coming from robots and spam intended to subvert rankings for criminal or
malicious reasons. Our rankings and tie breakers also use data from some other
SSD related internet sources from time to time.
You can read more
about the significance and track record of this methodology in predicting and
observing SSD market intentions in
earlier editions of this
article. | |
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SSD news
SSD history
VCs in SSDs
market research
SSD news archive -
October 2014
SSD
news archive - November 2014
SSD news archive -
December 2014
10 things
which changed in SSD year 2014
the Top SSD Companies -
series overview
about
the publisher - 23 years guiding the enterprise
the previous edition of
the Top SSD Companies - Q3 2014
the next edition of the
Top SSD Companies - Q1 2015
consolidation
in enterprise flash arrays - why? when? analysis |
... |
8 years on - do we still
need this type of list?
...maybe we need another one to join
it too!
The Top SSD Companies -
researched and analyzed by StorageSearch.com
- has established a unique reputation within the
SSD industry for
detecting and predicting significant new business and technology transitions in
the SSD market.
When this series started - 8 years ago - I explained
the rationale of using search based metrics derived from the focus group of
serious SSD readers to help prioritize your time (and mine) when assembling
any list of must-see companies.
With the benefit of hindsight that was
a great idea - for more than the reasons I gave at the time - which if you
want to be reminded - originally were:- lack of financial data,
unreliability
and predictive irrelevance of backwards looking shipments data in a
fast changing, disruptive market like SSD.
The other reason this
series has worked so well as a yardstick of the SSD industry - is that even when
we had what seemed to be reliable data about what some companies were doing -
there was always uncertainty about whether the market would adopt some of these
adventuresome technology notions - and even if they did - how soon they would
have any business impact.
Luckily for all of us - whatever the
quality of our crystal balls, and whatever our educational levels in memory
technologies, data architecture, software or new product launch plans - none of
it really mattered - because all those factors (including stuff we didn't know
about - and even when we were muddled and sometimes plain wrong in our
thinking) - all these factors were scooped up and filtered into the crowd
based intelligence of our peers in the SSD market.
Search (and
StorageSearch readers) meant that we got the best results in the end - even if
- from an individual point of view - the reasons at the time - didn't seem so
obvious. Because the market is always right in the end. And people don't buy
products they don't know about from companies they don't know.
For
all those reasons mentioned above (and more which readers have told me about in
our conversations) the Top SSD Companies List has been useful in the past.
What about now and the future?
We still live in chaotic
times where the raw pivotal influences now include more technology types and the
outcomes of the market blender includes the complex interplay and
co-existence of multiple
generations of
software thinking and architecture. So the need for this list and the
list itself will continue.
But it will soon be joined by a new one
too. A new SSD list which I've been waiting 12 years for the right time to
get started.
12 years?
Back in 2003 I published a
market paper which
explained why I expected that the enterprise SSD market would reach $10
billion / year revenue based on a simple user value proposition I call CPU-SSD
equivalence.
At that time revenue for the whole SSD market in all
segments was 100x smaller than that $10 billion figure - so it seemed like a
crazy idea compared to what everyone else was saying. But it looked inevitable
to me that buyer behavior would make it happen.
I spoke to many SSD
company founders about this idea after publication - and many SSD founders have
since told me that the original $10 billion enterprise SSD market article
(and its
2005 follow
up which covered all the markets you see today) gave them extra
confidence in setting their aspirations high.
In 2015 we've now
reached a point where - if I follow the pattern I've adopted in the
past 23 years -
of publishing a focused directory whenever I feel the time is right to populate
it with 10 or more companies - there is a compelling logic in beginning a new
list of SSD companies - which will initially be a list of companies which have
revenues equivalent to $1 billion each in the enterprise SSD market. The first
draft will appear here in April 2015.
And - as we head towards $100
billion / year SSD market (for all types of SSD) in 2020 (another
prediction of
mine from 2010) there will be more of these $billion SSD lists. Those will be a
lot easier to compile. | |
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