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the Top SSD Companies

Series overview and links to all past quarterly editions

by Zsolt Kerekes, editor, StorageSearch.com

Who are the top SSD companies?...

the companies which you absolutely have to look at if you've got any new projects involving SSDs?
...
Year the Top SSD Companies
links to earlier editions		 Key changes in each edition
2014 Top 25 SSD Companies - 2014 Q3

published - December 2014		 PLDA made its first appearance in this list.

Diablo became the new #1 most researched SSD company.
Top 25 SSD Companies - 2014 Q2 PLX Technology and Microsemi made their first appearances in this list.

"In this quarter SanDisk conclusively demonstrated the scale of its ambitions in enterprise flash by agreeing to acquire acquire Fusion-io for approximately $1.1 billion."
Top 25 SSD Companies - 2014 Q1 In this new edition (published April 30, 2014) Maxta and A3CUBE made their first appearances in this list.

"This is IBM's highest rank to date - in the 7 years of publishing this series."
2013 Top 25 SSD Companies - 2013 Q4 In this edition the shape of the bulge at the very top of the list changed.

Tegile and Virtium - made their first appearances in this list.

"In this quarter - LSI launched the most ambitious design of single chip SSD controller in the history of the SSD market - which I described as having the aspiration of - SSD market on a chip".
Top 25 SSD Companies - 2013 Q3 HGST and Diablo Technologies made their first appearances in this list.

"This period - the 26th quarter in this series - was characterized even more than before by the theme of SSD company acquisitions."
Top 25 SSD Companies - 2013 Q2 8 of the top 10 companies now market rackmount SSDs.

"Just after the quarter ended - SanDisk announced an agreement to acquire SMART Storage. In the 24 hours which followed that announcement - the search spike for SMART in our readership temporarily shot it up to the #2 most searched SSD company."
Top 25 SSD Companies - 2013 Q1 Greenliant Systems and Marvell Technology made their first appearances in this list.

"It's tempting to focus just on success stories. But for every SSD company which climbs the rankings inevitably another drops down."
2012 Top 25 SSD Companies - 2012 Q4 Pure Storage made its first appearance in this list - having been a near miss in the previous quarter.

"One of the frustrations for Skyera, however, is that demonstrating reliability and apps compatibility as a newcomer to the mission critical systems market - can't be rushed."
Top 25 SSD Companies - 2012 Q3 Fastest climber was Skyera - up 14 places.

KingSpec made its first appearance in this list.

"The big deal for TMS watchers in this quarter was that the privately owned company which has been at the fast end of the SSD market since 1978 - was being acquired by IBM."
Top 25 SSD Companies - 2012 Q2 2 companies went straight from exiting stealth mode into the list:- DensBits and Skyera.

Also 2 longer established companies - Kaminario and KingFast - made their first appearances in this list.

The market impact of adaptive R/W DSP IP was examined in this quarter's article for many of the leading companies.
Top 20 SSD OEMs - 2012 Q1 Anobit (acquired by Apple) made its first appearance in the top 20 list.

"In this quarter - SanDisk acquired FlashSoft - one of the leading independent software vendors in the SSD ASAPs market."
2011 Top 20 SSD OEMs - 2011 Q4 WhipTail made its first appearance in the top 20 list.

"Every single company in the top 10 has its own proprietary SSD controller IP and architecture... We haven't gotten to the stage where the color or the brand on the SSD box determines how many get sold. Nevertheless some brands are now firmly associated with particular concepts."
Top 20 SSD OEMs - 2011 Q3 FlashSoft and Nimbus made their first appearances in the top 20 list.

IO Turbine would have done so too - if it hadn't been acquired during the qualifying quarter by Fusion-io.
Top 20 SSD OEMs - 2011 Q2 Pliant made its first appearance at the top 10 end of the list - in the same quarter in which it got acquired by SanDisk.

Virident Systems also entered the list for the first time.
Top 20 SSD OEMs - 2011 Q1 Kove entered the list for the first time.
2010 Top 20 SSD OEMs - 2010 Q4 SMART and LSI entered the list for the first time.
Top 20 SSD OEMs - 2010 Q3 As the list was expanded to 20 SSD companies - readers got better visibility of the changing rankings for companies like Pliant and Seagate.
Top 10 SSD OEMs - 2010 Q2 OCZ entered the list for the first time.
Top 10 SSD OEMs - 2010 Q1 Micron and PhotoFast entered the list for the first time.
2009 Top 10 SSD OEMs - 2009 Q4 Fusion-io unveiled details of a very fast PCIe form factor, InfiniBand SSD for "government customers" and revealed that Samsung had become an investor.
Top 10 SSD OEMs - 2009 Q3 StorageSearch.com disclosed that more PCIe SSDs had passed 2.5" SSDs in reader search popularity.

"This is a tsunami warning event for SSD vendors in the enterprise server acceleration market" said editor Zsolt Kerekes in a news alert September 24, 2009.

Foremay entered the list for the first time.
Top 10 SSD OEMs - 2009 Q2 SandForce entered the list for the first time. First appearance of a company whose primary business was designing SSD controllers.
Top 10 SSD OEMs - 2009 Q1 Fusion-io was #1 - announced deal with HP and coming on-board of - Steve Wozniak. PureSilicon entered the list for the first time on news it was sampling the world's first standard height terabyte 2.5" SSD.

RunCore entered the list for the first time.
2008 Top 10 SSD OEMs - 2008 Q4 Intel and Solidata entered the list for the first time.
Top 10 SSD OEMs - 2008 Q3 Fusion-io entered the list for the first time.
Top 10 SSD OEMs - 2008 Q2 Memoright was #1 having shipped the fastest 2.5" SATA flash SSD family available during most of this quarter.
Top 10 SSD OEMs - 2008 Q1 STEC said it would be supplying its SSDs on an "exclusive" basis for use in EMC's Symmetrix DMX-4 following a disasterous revenue quarter.

Toshiba entered the list for the first time.
2007 Top 10 SSD OEMs - 2007 Q4 BiTMICRO was #1. Memoright entered the list for the first time.
Top 10 SSD OEMs - 2007 Q3 SanDisk was #1. Violin Memory entered the list for the first time.
Top 10 SSD OEMs - 2007 Q2

start of a new series 		STEC was #1.

8 out of the top 10 made HDD form factor SSDs.

SiliconSystems received a patent for its PowerArmor technology.

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Who are the top SSD companies?...

the companies which you absolutely have to look at if you've got any new projects involving SSDs?

Over 7 years ago I started publishing a new series - the Top SSD Companies which has been seen by over 5 million readers and is now regarded by many key people in the SSD industry (and their investors and biggest customers) as one of the most useful SSD articles which influences their thinking.

In the very 1st edition (July 2007) I explained why I believed search volume based data would be the best way to shortlist the future winners in the SSD market. I said...
  • The SSD market is going to grow from a small base of easy to follow companies (just 11 in 1999) into many hundreds of companies that few people - apart from market specialists - will have the time to analyze and follow.

    SSDs will change from being a niche topic to become the most significant business leveraging assets in the enterprise IT infrastructure - therefore it would be useful to identify future leaders as early as possible.
  • Financial data is backwards looking, is available too late to provide visibility in fast growing discontinuous markets, and is not available for the significant companies in the market - which when I began this series were nearly all privately owned.
  • Who really decides the future winners in the SSD market?

    It's the early adopters and the movers and shakers who make markets happen.

    In the years leading up to the start of this new series - that had been almost exclusively the readers of StorageSearch.com

    And although there are now thousands of web sites which cover the SSD market - our readership still includes most of the significant people who will decide the shape of the future SSD market including the people who start and manage the most significant SSD companies and their biggest and most trend setting customers.
Many of these arguments above are just as valid today. And as the SSD market has grown bigger and the predictive power of the series has been market proven - each new edition of the Top SSD Companies is eagerly anticipated.

I'm a heavy user of the list myself - because it reminds me what you think is important. And the real-time raw version is sensitive enough to tell me about emails and news stories I should have looked at but didn't.


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"Out of all the companies which have had at least one appearance in the top 10 section of StorageSearch.com's Top SSD Companies list in the past 2 years - 7 have been acquired."
what changed in SSD year 2013?


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"...the SSD market will be bigger in revenue than the hard drive market ever was."
How will hard drives fare in an SSD world?


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An important new factor for the PCIe SSD market in 2014 was the materialization of product announcements centered around the core concept of using PCIe as an interconnection fabric between racks.

The key pioneers driving these efforts have been PLX and A3CUBE.
updating 10 key SSD ideas in 2014


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picture of ZD-XL - PCIe SSD accelerator from OCZ
HA integrated PCIe SSD based acceleration
with caching optimized for Microsoft SQL
the ZD-XL SQL Accelerator
from OCZ


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Does - what you call the SSD...

impact - who the SSD buyer will call?
Branding Strategies in the SSD Market


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I was even more impressed by a new (to me) business model which Tegile has been testing on selected customers. I can see now why the early investors liked this company even though it took me longer to get it...
an SSD conversation with Tegile (June 24, 2014)


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suggested SSD articles on StorageSearch.com
Enterprise SSDs - the Survive and Thrive Guide - some simple rules to help you stay on the safer side of the tracks in this maddenly unruly market.

Where are we now with SSD software? - (And how did we get into this mess?)

exciting new directions in rackmount SSDs - new thinking inside the box will lead to better enterprise flash arrays

enterprise SSDs - exploring the limits of the market in your head - is about enterprise SSD futurology.

adaptive flash care management IP (including DSP) for SSDs - what is it? and who does it? This will be a disruptive transition.

The big market impact of SSD dark matter - you can't see them and they aren't in the market size reports which you just purchased recently. But you can't plan SSD investments or strategies without taking them into account.

Can you tell me the best way to SSD Street? - I'm like the Old Woman of the SSD Village who talks to everyone that passes through. No wonder I have a unique perspective. It would be strange if I didn't.


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"We can't afford NOT to participate in the SSD market. But don't ask how we're going to make money out of it just yet..."
hostage to the fortunes of SSD