Solid State Drives in the Enterprise

Objective Analysis

Publication Date	August 2008
Publisher	Objective Analysis
Product Type	Report
Pages	60
ISBN Number	not applicable
Product Code	OBJ00007

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Summary

This report covers the market for flash-based solid-state drives (SSDs) in enterprise servers and SANs (storage area networks). Through a months-long series of interviews with participants in all sides of this new market Objective Analysis has developed models for acceptance in several key markets.

Key findings are:

The market for enterprise SSDs will grow by two orders of magnitude, from 17,000 units in 2008 to over 1.7 million units in 2013, representing an average annual growth of 148%.
Enterprise SSD revenues, which should reach $90 million in 2008, will grow at a 65% average annual rate to exceed $1 billion by 2013.
A significant portion of this growth will be driven by a steep price decline in the SSD market driven by NAND price declines, a move from SLC to MLC flash, and other important price declines driven by a maturing of the technology.
Enterprise HDDs are threatened by this new technology, which will initially replace enterprise HDDs at a 10:1 ratio, dropping to 3:1 by the end of the forecast period. This means that the Enterprise HDD market will shrink faster than the enterprise SSD market can grow.

The enterprise SSD market will see rapid adoption in transaction processing systems in the near term, but over the long run even stronger growth will occur in large Internet systems.

Content

Executive Summary
SSDs in the Enterprise
Enterprise Server Types and what They Need
- Transaction Processing Systems
  - Charge Card Processing
  - Reservations Systems
  - Algorithmic Trading
  - Currency Exchange and Arbitrage
  - Electronic Inter-Bank Transfers
  - Other Real Time Transaction Processing Systems
- Media Servers
  - Video on Demand (VOD)
  - Special Needs of HDTV
  - Broadcast Video
  - Video Production and Modeling
- Large Internet Servers
  - Real Time Data/Feed Processing
  - Contextual Web Advertising
  - Data Warehousing
  - E-Mail Servers
  - Caching Requirements for Internet Servers
- Other Virtualized Machines
  - Video Surveillance
  - Call Centers21
- Science & Engineering
  - Data Modeling
  - Weather/Life Sciences
  - Aerospace Design
  - Nuclear Fission Models
  - Software Development
Why Servers Need SSDs
- The Access Density Problem
- Random Read Misses (RRM)
- High IOPS
  - Read vs Write Speeds
  - IOPS per Dollar
  - IOPS per Watt
- Lack of Fragmentation Issues
- Reduced Power Consumption
- Cost Savings
  - Reduction in HDD Count
  - Lower Cost of Storage
  - Reduction in Server Count
  - Power/Cooling Savings
  - Floor Space
- Reliability
  - Wear Reporting
- Operating Temperature Range
- Vibration
Why SSD Acceptance is Limited
- Scale Out Model vs Scale Up Models
- Cost
- Reliability Concerns
- Alternatives to SSDs
  - High-RPM HDDs
  - Short-Stroking
  - Striped HDDs & RAID Systems
The Impact of Price Reductions
Todays current large over-provisioning will be significantly reduced
Future SSDs will convert from todays SLC to MLC
Enterprise SSDs large DRAM complement will shrink and its cost will drop
As controller technology matures it will command a lower premium