Lack of Latency and Power Efficiency are Important Features Making SSDs Preferable over HDDs

Solid state drives (SSDs) are digital storage devices; they are emerging as preferred devices over hard disk drives (HDDs) and gaining traction in the market. Made from semiconductors, SSDs contain microchip-based flash memory and have no moving parts, unlike HDDs. The global solid state drive market is classified on the basis of end-users into enterprise SSDs and client SSDs segments. In 2014, the client SSDs segment dominated the global solid state drive market in terms of revenue. The growth in this segment is mainly driven by demand from OEMs across North America and Asia Pacific. However, the enterprise SSD market is gaining traction due to growing demand from data center applications. On the basis of capacity, the solid state drive market is segmented as 80 GB and below, 81 GB to 320 GB, 321 GB to 500 GB, 501 GB to 1 TB, and 1 TB and above. In 2014, solid state drives with capacities of 80 GB and below led the global solid state drive market in terms of revenue. SSDs in ultra-thin mobile devices with capacities below 80 GB are boosting the growth of this segment. On the basis of interface, solid state drive market is segmented as SATA, SAS, and PCI-E. In 2014, SATA SSDs accounted for a major share—72.4%—of the global solid state drive market’s revenue, and 80.0% of the global SSD volume. The older PCs support only the SATA interface for upgrading to SSDs, which is expected to increase the demand of this segment over the forecast period as well. However, enterprises will drive the revenue of PCI-E and SAS SSDs, making them the fastest-growing and largest-revenue-contributing segments, respectively, in 2022.

Vendors’ focus on developing higher-capacity SSDs and investing across enterprise SSD product development, are the trends observed in the solid state drive market. Currently, increasing demand for mobile devices, such as tablets, notebooks, laptops, and the use of SSDs in them, is the key driver for the growth of the solid state drive market. Lack of latency, that is faster performance, and power efficiency are the important features making SSDs preferable over HDDs. Hybrid drives, which provide the performance of SSDs and the capacity of HDDs, would gain demand mainly in the client SSD market.

Technology and Characteristics of Solid State Drives: http://bit.ly/2b83RsC

The solid state drive market will witness a decline in prices over the forecast period. This would further help escalate the growth of the solid state drive market. However, the impact is subdued in the medium term considering the challenges faced in terms of cost-effective scaling of 2D integrated circuits (ICs), which may reach saturation. In the long term, the solid state market would experience exponential growth with demand largely contributed by the enterprise segment, where trends such as large-scale adoption of cloud technologies and high-performance scaling across data centers would influence market growth. Another significant development expected is rise in demand for large-capacity storage drives, primarily from enterprise consumers. Across the client SSD segment, a decline in demand for large-capacity drives is anticipated, as more individuals are expected to adopt cloud storage services to meet data accessibility requirements while on the move. The trend is further augmented by services such as G-Drive and Dropbox, which impede growth potential for client SSDs in the long run. Currently, Asia Pacific dominates the global solid state drive market in terms of revenue and volume and is expected to retain its dominance over the forecast period.

Leading players in the solid state drive market are Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., SanDisk Corporation, Intel Corporation, Micron Technology, Inc., Toshiba Corporation, OCZ Storage Solutions, Inc., Transcend Information, Inc., Western Digital Corporation, Inc., Seagate Technology PLC, and Lite-On Technology Corporation. Targeting profitable segments and partnering with other players in the industry are few of the strategies adopted by the leading players in the solid state drive market to gain competitive advantage over their peers.