Who Rules the SSD World Right Now?

Last week, storage-tracking site StorageSearch posted an interesting report that listed some predictions as to the growth of SSD’s in the future, and also includes a top ten list of companies that are important to solid-state technology right now. Not surprisingly, there are a few names on that list that are familiar, and some that are likely not.

The report mentions that in 1999, only 10 companies had anything to do with solid-state storage, but by the end of 2010, that number is expected to tip at 200, and by 2013, that number will quintuple to 1,000. Yes, 1,000 different SSD OEM’s in 2013… it’s staggering. If predictions like that don’t show off the importance of SSD’s, I’m not sure what would!

It goes on to say that during the first wave of the SSD market bubble, focus is on seeing growth to $10 billion per year in sales, while during the second wave, expected to happen between 2015 – 2019, SSDs are expected to become the center of attention in the data driven economy, more so than CPUs and operating systems. That’s a rather big statement… a storage device demanding more consideration over a CPU or OS. Wow.

Regarding the top ten list, Fusion-io takes the top spot. That might sound a bit surprising for those of us who stick to eyeing consumer-level drives, but it appears that SSD technology is really being noticed for industry use, and as it is, Fusion-io continues to offer the fastest SSD’s available. In third place is SandForce, Western Digital in fourth, Intel in eighth, Micron in ninth and OCZ Technology in tenth.

I’ve only touched on the basics here. You can read the full report and delve into the reasons for each choice a lot more, along with more predictions.

The prophetic vision Fusion-io proposes for the future of SSDs is a break away from the ties of legacy HDD form factors and interfaces as a prerequisite to get the full benefits of the transition to the SSD accelerated economy. Regardless of whether they believe in Fusion-io’s version of the SSD Heresies lots of other SSD companies are seeing an alluring business opportunity to be had by following what they do – and the PCIe SSD market is starting to resemble the 2.5″ SSD market in the number of companies participating.