A research from market intelligence firm IDC found that pricing remains a key metric for SSD (solid state drive) adoption in all market segments and the long term decline in the cost of NAND memory will translate into lower price points for SSDs.
The lower price points, coupled with increased SSD capacities will make them an alternative to hard disk drives (HDDs) in certain market segments, IDC said.
Despite the economic recession and constrained IT spending, SSD shipments surpassed 11 million units in 2009, an increase of 14% compared to the same period last year.
The firm expects SSD adoption to continue to experience tangible growth in 2010 and beyond, with shipments expected to achieve a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 54% over the 2008-2013 forecast period.
According to IDC, SSDs will have largest market opportunity in PCs, where there are two avenues to adoption, one is as an alternative to an HDD in a traditional notebook and the second lies in offering a low-cost storage alternative for use in mininotebooks. In both cases, SSD price points and storage capacities must be competitive with HDD costs before broader adoption occurs.
IDC said that it believes SSDs to complement HDDs for certain applications in the enterprise and the desire for increased performance, better utilisation, faster access times and lower power consumption is providing an increasing opportunity for SSD-based offerings in the datacentre.
Jeff Janukowicz, research manager of hard disk drive components and solid state drives at IDC, said: “Despite lingering uncertainties around the economy, IDC remains positive on the outlook for SSDs and believes the trajectories for shipment and revenue growth are a source of optimism moving forward.
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SSD adoption will continue to experience tangible growth given the nascent stage for SSD adoption coupled with many of the benefits inherent in SSDs. We expect SSD vendors to achieve capacity and price points that make SSDs an attractive solution in the PC and enterprise markets where the value proposition of SSDs is compelling.
