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February, 2008
SSDs: Carving a Niche in the
Consumer and Enterprise Markets
By Joanne De Peralta
The release of Apple’s MacBook Air, Lenovo Thinkpad and Dell Latitude Notebooks,
that are all equipped with solid state disks (SSDs), have created a strong buzz
in the computing industry. Debates of whether or not the era of SSDs has finally
arrived have stimulated activity in quite a number of forums. The advantages of
solid state disks over conventional hard drives have been highlighted with the
stream of products being introduced to both consumer and enterprise markets.
Products utilizing solid-state storage are now offered as a valid option to
resolve complicated upgrades to accommodate highly demanding business processes.
Upfront, price is the biggest question. Is it worth that much? Are the benefits
you’ll get from a gadget equipped with an SSD equivalent to money you’ll need to
shell out? Is there no other way to get that benefit without the price tradeoff?
Come to think of it, nobody is pushing us to jump on to the SSD bandwagon. The
only reason why all this talk has surfaced is because we have been presented
with something that can elevate our computing experience to a higher level,
something that will enable us to thrive in previously impossible situations and
perform really well. Solid state drives, just as any other technology in its
early stages, come at a premium. Microsoft offers its Windows Vista but there’s
always Windows XP if you think that suits you better. There’s also the choice
between a standard mobile phone and the iPhone. How about IBM Blade Servers for
your business, when you can keep your systems running using standard rack-mount
servers? Minus the benefits of class, sophistication, less power consumption,
better cooling and ease of management, you can surely get away without the
pricey upgrades.
But since there are people and corporations who need these upgrades to achieve
higher levels of performance, the suppliers' natural reaction would be to fill
in the need and provide the product. Companies like BiTMICRO take pride in the
R&D efforts that they put into their cutting edge products, especially when they
beat the competition to market. This scenario gives rise to a niche market, one
that sees the value in being able to surpass current challenges; early adopters
that are willing to see beyond the initial investment of buying the drives but
are keen on acquiring the benefits they stand to gain from new technology.
An SSD offers remarkable performance for I/O intensive applications and those
that require fast and frequent data access. Examples include database servers,
and transaction processing applications that are usually employed by the banking
industry and for business-to-business online transactions for the enterprise
market on one hand, while you have gaming and animation for the consumer
industry on the other. Ruggedness is also perceived as an added benefit , as
mobile computing has now become a necessity for people who need to work while on
the road.
BiTMICRO has recently announced its roster of upcoming products slated for this
year that includes 1.6TB Ultra320 SCSI and 832 GB SATA solid-state drives. Such
product announcements that are powered with high level specs and features are
expected to draw much attention not just from industry watchers but also from
the end users. The capacities of the said flash-based SSDs are superior to what
is currently available in the market. Their expected performance, ruggedness and
security features are certainly on the industry’s wish list, except for the
price. With these products at hand, more breakthroughs can be expected. Phone
and MP3 player manufacturers will now have bigger elbowroom to improve their
next generation of products. The same goes for players in the enterprise server
and storage industry that are as hungry as consumers when it comes to
breakthrough products.
Beyond all the fuss and the noise these announcements have made, one thing
remains clear: these products may not satisfy everyone’s thirst for new
technology. But, there’s a specific set of people, corporations and
manufacturers whose prayers have been answered with these announcements. The
buzz may get too loud, the specifications, features and promised performance may
be overly reported, but at the end of the day, the product will cater only to a
niche market. Who knows? With fast falling flash memory prices, solid state
drives may soon evolve to finally become the conventional storage device. Until
then, most of us will be on the lookout for the day when SSDs will finally find
their way to every computer in every home and office worldwide.
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