Enterprise SSDs: Technologies and Markets

• Publication date: November 2012
• Report size: 104 pages

This report covers the market for high-performance flash-based solid-state drives (SSDs) for enterprise applications. It explains the technology, gives reasons for its acceptance and lack of acceptance in various applications, and details those applications. Other parts of the ecosystem, notably trade groups and standards, are described. The report concludes with forecast models for several key markets. The study has been assembled by O...

This report covers the market for high-performance flash-based solid-state drives (SSDs) for enterprise applications. It explains the technology, gives reasons for its acceptance and lack of acceptance in various applications, and details those applications. Other parts of the ecosystem, notably trade groups and standards, are described. The report concludes with forecast models for several key markets.

The study has been assembled by Objective Analysis through exhaustive research and interviews with participants held at various times over the past few years with participants from all sides of the market.

The market is forecast three ways: From the bottom up, analyzing the demand for enterprise SSDs from 22 end markets, from the top down, reviewing an enterprise HDD forecast and analyzing which parts of the market are threatened with replacement by SSDs, and finally by interface, a forecast that splits out the top-down forecast into markets for the three leading enterprise SSD interfaces.

Key findings are:

1. The market for enterprise SSDs will grow from 382,000 units in 2011 to 3.9 million units in 2016, representing an average annual growth of 59%.

2. Enterprise SSD revenues, which should reach $582 million in 2011, will grow at a 43% average annual rate $3.5 billion by 2016.

3. A significant share of this growth will be driven by steep price reductions in the SSD market supported by NAND price declines, a move from SLC to MLC flash, and other important price declines driven by a maturing of SSD controller technology.

4. Enterprise HDDs are threatened by SSDs, which initially replaced enterprise HDDs at a 10:1 ratio, but this drops 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.

5. Enterprise SSD were initially adopted in transaction processing systems but this technology is now more widely used in large Internet systems. The Internet will drive the majority of enterprise SSD growth for the remainder of the forecast period.

6. Although significant resources are being committed to SSDs by a number of companies, the technology is still young, and many pitfalls still need to be addressed. This report documents these pitfalls and the efforts being devoted to their solution.

Payment Processing Industry in the United States

Table of Contents
Executive Summary 1
SSDs in the Enterprise 2
Enterprise Server Types and what They Need 7
Transaction Processing Systems 7
Charge Card Processing 8
Reservations Systems 9
Algorithmic Trading 9
Currency Exchange and Arbitrage 10
Inter-Bank Transfers 11
Other Real Time Transaction Processing Systems 11
Video 12
Video on Demand (VOD) 12
HDTV Drives Higher Capacities 14
Broadcast Video 15
Video Production 15
Large Internet Servers 16
Real Time Data/Feed Processing 17
Contextual Web Advertising 18
Data Warehousing 18
E-Mail Servers 19
Internet Server Caching 19
Other Applications 20
Video Surveillance 20
Call Centers 21
Science & Engineering 22
Electronic Design Automation & Modeling 22
Weather/Life Sciences 23
Aerodynamics Design 24
Nuclear Fission Models 25
Software Development 25
SSDs and Virtualization 27
How SSDs Complement Data Centers 29
Access Density: A Growing Problem 29
Random Read Misses (RRM) 32
SSDs Offer High IOPS 33
Comparing Both Read & Write Speeds 36
Measuring IOPS per Dollar 39
Another Important Metric: IOPS per Watt 40
Reduced Power Consumption 41
Boosting Reliability with SSDs 43
HDD Reliability 43
NAND Flash Endurance 44
Reducing the Odds of Failure 46
SSDs Stop Fragmentation Concerns 47
Cost Savings 48
Fewer HDDs 48
Reducing the Cost of High-Performance Storage 49
Server Count Reduction 49
Less Cooling – Power Savings 50
Cutting Floor Space 50
Reliability 50
NAND Wear Reporting 52
Operating Temperatures 52
Shock & Vibration 53
Overcoming SSDs’ Quirks 55
Minimum Write Size 55
Slower Writes Than Reads 56
Inconsistent Performance 58
Standards Help Improve Performance 63
Building Standards for SSDs 63
International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) 63
Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) 64
Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) 64
Solid State Drive Alliance (SSDA) 64
Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface (NVMHCI) 65
International Disk Drive Equipment & Materials Association (IDEMA) 66
Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) 66
Recently Developed SSD Interface Standards 67
SMART 67
Trim 68
Why SSD Acceptance is Limited 69
Scale Out vs. Scale Up Models 69
SSD Costs 70
SSD Wear Concerns 71
Alternatives to SSDs 72
Enterprise HDDs 72
Short-Stroking or De-Stroking 73
RAID Systems & Striping 74
Various Models of SSD Adoption 77
Fixed Cost 77
Constant Throughput 78
Constant Capacity 80
Managing SSDs 82
Managing Tiered Data 82
Where Do SSDs Belong? 84
The Impact of Price 86
Enterprise SSDs will convert from SLC NAND to MLC 86
Today’s current large over-provisioning will be significantly reduced 88
Controller technology will command a lower premium as it matures 89
Enterprise SSDs’ large DRAM buffer will shrink, reducing costs 89
Enterprise SSD Price Forecast 90
Total Cost of Ownership 93
Forecasts by Application 95
Transaction Processing Systems 95
Media Servers 96
Large Internet Servers 96
Science & Engineering 97
Total SSD Forecast 98
Combined Application Forecast 98
“Top-Down” Forecast 98
Forecast by Interface 101
SSD Interface Forecast Assumptions 102
Methodology 105
Further Reading 106
Figures 107
Tables 108

Companies Mentioned

Fusion-io, STEC, Intel, Texas Memory Systems, TMS, Pliant, SanDisk, LSI, Hitachi, Seagate, Western Digital