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Drive for perfection

Editorial Type: Management     Date: 09-2013    Views: 3387   







To listen to some experts in the industry would lead you to believe that the hard disk is dead or dying, battered into submission by the upstart SSD. Users in the real world though will know that this is not the case. Storage magazine looks into what is really happening in the world of disk technologies

August this year saw the founding of the Storage Products Association (SPA) by Seagate, Toshiba and WD. The SPA will 'serve as a new voice for the storage industry to help promote the important and growing role of hard disk drives (HDDs)'. The formation of the SPA to promote new innovations driven by hard disk drives - a sixty year old technology - reflects the critical role HDDs play in enabling today's and tomorrow's data-intensive mobile and cloud world.

According to IDC our 'digital universe' will grow by a factor of 300 from 2005 to 2020, reaching 40 trillion gigabytes. With this growth trajectory, the demand for high-capacity, high-performance and cost-effective storage will continue to soar, whether it's for data stored locally, in the data centre or in the cloud. HGST and the other SPA founders aim to inform customers about how hard drive technology, solid state technology and variations of these technologies can be combined to efficiently scale to support the client market, and cloud and enterprise data centre infrastructures to deliver value in terms of the best total cost of ownership (TCO).

Storage customers, partners and users need to understand, deploy and support current and future storage needs, including the key role of HDDs and solid state hybrid drives (SSHDs) in an effective storage mix for all consumer and business environments.

"We have seen the demand for storage products shift dramatically over the last ten years with the emergence of cloud computing, Internet search, social networks, big data and mobile computing," said Mark Grace, senior vice president of marketing, HGST, and member of the SPA board of directors. "This period of remarkable change is driving the need for innovative and reliable high-performance and high-capacity storage with the best TCO, especially in the areas of hyperscale cloud datacentre infrastructures and cold storage environments. As storage companies, SPA members are at the forefront of this change, focused on evolving products to support changing market needs."

HYBRID SOLUTION
What of the 'threat' from SSD technology? Research firm IHS has predicted that SSDs (solid-state drives) will account for more than one third of the computer storage market by 2017, almost seven times the number of shipments recorded in 2012. The total worldwide volume is expected to increase from 31 million units to 227 million units in the space of five years, forcing down the percentage of the market devoted to hard disk drives; from 94% in 2012, hard disk drives are expected to take up just 64% of the total market in five years. The explosive growth over this period equates to around 48%, and will put the SSD on the map as a promising substitute for hard disk drives.

The rise in the number of SSDs being shipped across the globe has already begun; measuring in at just 6% of the computer storage solutions market in 2012, the demand for ultrabooks and other super-slim laptop models over the next few years is expected to drive demand considerably. Touchscreen displays are becoming more prominent, and the upcoming Haswell processor created by Intel is set to revolutionise thin computers for consumers. These units demand powerful, versatile and compact drives. Combine this with the price of NAND flash memory drastically decreasing, and the conditions are perfect for a surge in SSDs.

Undoubtedly there are speed advantages to be had, especially in business environments where response is critical, but again the industry seems to recognise that this alone is not a reason to throw out all your spinning disk just yet.

Rob Commins, Vice President of Marketing at Tegile comments: "There is a corner case set of applications that need the absolute bleeding fastest storage out there. For that segment, an all-flash array like Tegile's HA2800 is a great solution. For the other 97% of the market, a hybrid array delivers far more performance than is typically needed. Take for example, Tegile customer Voonami. By going from traditional storage to lower cost hybrid storage, the cloud service provider was able to reduce their time managing storage performance by almost 90%."



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