| You might also be interested in
the Top SSD Companies
in Q4 2016 |
| .. |
the Top SSD
Companies - Q3 201638th
quarterly edition
by
Zsolt Kerekes,
editor - StorageSearch.com
- November 24, 2016 |
Data architectures and
technologies born from the lessons of the SSD market now influence every
vital aspect of computer memory, storage, processing and software.
As
a result we have been seeing big changes and discontinuities occurring in the
business
behaviors of many companies as vendors race to identify and reposition
themselves to align their offerings to secure strategic positions for the
anticipated
enterprise
consolidation which is expected to occur when new generations of
software, systems and architecture converge in multi-tiered,
memory-intensive
infrastructures in which fossilized RW assumptions about rotating storage
(being an important limiting characteristic against which data transfers are
timed) will have been almost entirely
expunged
from the
software stack.
Now
in its 10th year of publishing the
Top SSD Companies Series
continues to be useful market guide which captures the crowd sourced
intelligence and search activities of those at the forefront of serious interest
in the memory systems markets - the readers of StorageSearch.com.
|
the Top 25 SSD Companies - Q3 2016based on reader search in this
period |
1 - Pure Storage -
same as before
Pure Storage's search volume was 60% higher than the #2
ranked company in this list and 100% higher than the #10 ranked company. This
kind of distinctive gap for the #1 company is similar to the kind of pattern
observed throughout 10 years series but the size of these gaps at the top end
of the list is closing due to a greater number of vendors participating in the
SSD market and possibly due to the granularity effects of greater segmentation.
rackmount SSDs,
petabyte SSDs
2 - Seagate
- up 1 place
In
August 2016 -
Seagate began demonstrating prototypes of a 60TB 3.5" SAS SSD which the
company said will be available next year.
SSD controllers,
SAS SSDs,
PCIe SSDs
3 - Violin
Memory - up 1 place
90%
of enterprise SSD companies have no good reasons to survive
4 - NxGn
- up 13 places
This is the first time that an SSD company which
focuses on "in-situ
processing" (which was one of the
big new
SSD ideas to hit the news in 2014) has reached the exalted top 5 region
of this list.
This is as significant in its own way as when in earlier
periods we saw PCIe SSD
companies do well in this list (such as when
Fusion-io entered the
top 10 in 2008) and similarly when we saw
NVDIMM SSD
companies get high entries in the list (Diablo in 2014).
This
suggests to me that in the next one or two years we'll see a handful of in-situ
SSD processing companies in the top 10 region of the list.
M.2 SSDs
5 - Intel
- up 3 places
big
SSD ideas of 2016,
the future
of memory intensive systems
6 - SanDisk
- down 4 places
SSD company
acquisitions
7 - Micron
- down 2 places
hybrid DIMMs,
memory
boom-bust cycles,
big
SSD ideas of 2016
8 - Diablo
Technologies - down 3 places
SSD
and SCM DIMM wars
9 - Samsung
- up 2 places
consumer SSDs,
M.2 SSDs,
flash memory
10 - Foremay
- down 3 places
SSD
security,
military SSDs
11 - HGST
- down 2 places
SAS
SSDs, PCIe SSDs
12 - Virtium
- same as before
industrial SSDs,
M.2 SSDs
13 - Kaminario
- down 3 places
rackmount SSDs
14 - V&G
also formerly known as RunCore - down 1 place
military SSDs,
custom SSDs
15 - (tied) - Cactus
Technologies - up 8 places
industrial SSDs,
military SSDs
15 - (tied) - Mangstor
- up 12 places
PCIe
SSDs, fastest SSDs
17 - Netlist
- up 13 places
hybrid
DIMMs
18 - InnoDisk
- same as before
industrial SSDs
19 - Marvell
- same as before
SSD
controllers,
SSD glue chips
20 - (tied) - Nimbus
Data Systems - up 2 places
petabyte SSDs
20 - (tied) - OCZ
- down 4 places
consumer SSDs
22 - BiTMICRO
- down 1 place
rackmount SSDs,
PCIe SSDs
23 - Primary
Data - up 5 places
SSD software
24 - Memblaze
- up 2 places
PCIe
SSDs
25 - EMC
- down 10 places
the Fastest SSDs |
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Who were the SSD companies just outside this
list?
The next 10 or so companies (listed in ranking order) were:-
|
related reading
"If you're
trying to understand the SSD and memory systems markets and looking for a single
big idea which gives you a confident feel for what's going on - then you'll be
disappointed if you stare too hard and look in the expected places. Unlike past
years you won't find the answer in any single interface, memory technology or
startup company." - No more
deference - (December 1, 2016)
who d'you call for the
SSD crystal ball?
the Top SSD Companies -
Q2 2016
what were
the big SSD memory architecture ideas in 2016?
Decloaking
hidden and missing segments in the analysis of market opportunities for
enterprise rackmount flash | | |
| . |
Creating the climate for
DIMM wars
The DRAM market's new clothes had long been invisible.
But
the SSD market was too preoccupied with lower hanging fruit in storage.
Now
the secret is out and the effect of DIMM wars will brutal and swift and erode
decades of collective wisdom about the shape of next generation memory. |
| latency loving
reasons for fading out DRAM in the virtual memory slider mix | | |
| . |
| It looks like you're seriously interested
in SSDs so if you've got the time - you might also want to take a look at
the home page of StorageSearch.com
which - unlike most home pages - also includes some real content. |
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SSD news
SSD history
VCs in SSDs
market research
about the publisher
the Top SSD Companies -
series overview
consolidation
in enterprise flash arrays market
Branding Strategies in
the SSD Market (case studies)
the enterprise
SSD story why's the plot so complicated?
SSD
market self awareness is the only thing which matters
|
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Toshiba sampled 64 layer 3D
TLC.
Diablo announced volume availability of its Memory1 128GB DDR4
NVDIMM.
NVMdurance released a paper describing its offline machine
learning flash characterization tools. |
| SSD news - July 2016 | | |
.... |
Seagate previews 60TB 3.5"
SAS SSD
FlexiRemap software wins award at Flash Memory Summit
Radian
announced imminent sampling of PCIe based competitor to NVDIMMs. |
| SSD news - August 2016 | | |
.... |
Everspin filed IPO for
MRAM.
Violin issued going concern warning.
Foremay announced
volume shipments of aerospace capable 8TB 2.5" U.2 NVMe SSD.
|
| SSD news - September
2016 | | |
.... |
| When all storage is made
from memories the dividing line between storage and memory is much more fluid
than it has been before. And the new philosopher's stone by which alchemy
memory chip arrays are repurposed along this spectrum from one to the other -
raising and lowering the data entropy - is software rather than controller
chips. |
| where are we
heading with memory intensive systems? | | |
.... |
| In 2016 4 shining
companies - Diablo, Marvell, NVMdurance and Symbolic IO provided
significant technology markers for the way ahead for the SSD memory systems
ecosystem. |
| the big
SSD market lesson from 2016 | | |
.... |
 |
.... |
| when's the right time to
stop tracking acquired SSD brands as distinctly ranked entities? |
After publishing past
editions of this series I have often been asked by readers - how do you decide
when an SSD company which has been
acquired by
another SSD company should have its search results combined with the acquirer?
This is judged on a case by case basis.
With some companies
we see that searches on the web for the original brand can still dominate for
years. And if there are distinct differences in the brands which are associated
with product technologies in these searches then it's more useful to report
them separately.
For example - just as SanDisk continues to be
significantly stronger as an SSD search brand than HGST or WDC (which are now
part of the same group of businesses) so too - for now - we see that searches
for OCZ and Toshiba SSDs still maintain different patterns.
So
although Toshiba's announced intention was to strip away and stick to itself
any hint of enterprise SSDs away from OCZ the reconsumerization of the OCZ SSD
brandhasn't been in effect for very long.
Another question about search
rankings for acquired companies is what happens if you combine search results
for companies which share common ownership?
The answer is that
usefulness of such aggregated views depends on the brands, product technologies
and time in the market adoption time-line. And I've seen from analyzing such
patterns the results of simply adding unrelated searches don't always
correlate with future business success.
The long term leveraged
business impact of most acquisitions remains uncertain and in many cases the
advantages they bring are short term and tactical rather then long term and
sustainable.
That shouldn't be considered surprising given that the
SSD and memory systems markets themselves still exhibit many characteristics of
discontinuous technologies and revolutionary change. | | |
.... |
| In the context of strategic
changes in the merchant SSD controller market - all companies face the challenge
that there is only so far that they can go in getting mileage out of innovative
features in standard SSDs.
|
| a winter's tale
of SSD market influences | | |
.... |
| |
