![]() Seagate's spokesperson noted that SSDs will be geared toward the enterprise environment, in which transactional performance is key and cost per gigabyte secondary. WD would offer what customers demand for each application." "SSDs offer favored attributes when the host device is very small and requires only low capacity and where ultra performance is critical, such as in enterprise applications. ![]() That covers the majority of mass storage applications today and in the near future," Koh explained. HDDs are a better choice for any application larger than very small. "Each technology offers different attributes, benefiting respective applications. It presently sees HDDs and SSDs as " complementary for a long time forward", she added. Over at Western Digital (WD), which does not yet have a slim HDD, its Asia South sales director Margaret Koh said the company is "evaluating the interest in such a product and would enter the market should our customers demand it". Seagate added that it expects SSDs to remain niche in the laptop market "until it reaches the right mix of cost per gigabyte and performance". However, it noted that NAND flash will continue to enjoy over 20 percent year-on-year growth, driven by strong sales of smartphones and Apple's iPad. The research firm said worldwide semicon revenues will drop 0.1 percent against 2010 levels. Gartner on Thursday revised downward its forecast for the semiconductor industry in 2011. Momentus Thin, which is included in the Archos G9, offers users 250GB of capacity-eight times more than a standard 32GB tablet-at the same cost, a spokeswoman pointed out in an e-mail. Seagate Technology, on the other hand, believes that slim HDDs are a "compelling option for tablet manufacturers and buyers" as they provide the "best cost-performance values". This would improve performance previously afforded by SSDs, and manufacturers can then turn to the cheaper HDD option for storage purposes, she explained. However, she observed that appeal of HDDs in media tablets will grow if the flash component is increased at the motherboard or processor level. "These drawbacks may serve as a disincentive to some tablet users who require speed and mobility." IHS' Zhang also noted several disadvantages of HDD-based tablets, including potentially shorter battery life, longer boot time and a relatively heavier device compared to SSD-based tablets. In addition to the space reduction, flash drives offer power savings, better performance, and instant-on capability, he said. The space savings SSDs provide increases if it is in a BGA (ball grid array) form factor. ![]() To stave off the challenge from SSDs, HDD manufacturers are looking to undercut the cost of SSDs while providing higher densities-in the form of slim spinning disks, Zhang reported, citing Seagate's Momentus Thin as an example.Īt 7mm, slim HDDs are still about twice as thick as a modular SSD, Wong added. At the same time, the growth of media tablets-where the storage option is primarily flash memory-will negatively impact sales of notebooks, and hence the HDDs in them, it added. This is, however, expected to represent only a single-digit percentage of the notebook storage market. The research firm predicted that SSD shipments for notebooks will grow from 4.7 million in 2010 to 16.8 million units in 2015. Increasing shipments of SSDs for tablet devices over the next few years, although just a tiny fraction compared to HDDs, are expected to "shave off points of market share that are critical to maintaining the growth of the hard drive business", Fang Zhang, analyst for storage systems at IHS iSuppli, noted in a research note last month. Hard-disk drive (HDD) makers are introducing smaller form factor devices to cash in on fast-growing tablet sales but the road to success in this market segment is bumpy given the dominance of solid-state drives (SSDs), analysts warned.
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