SSD/Cloud Storage Emerges: Analysis of Storage Trends in 2012

Flood impact still in 2012

The most serious event for computer accessories in 2011 was the flood in Thailand. As the largest hard disk manufacturing base, hard disks were in serious shortage after the flood, and prices soared, doubling or even higher. To this day, the hard disk situation has not improved significantly.

Western Digital and Seagate said early on that the shortage situation was not optimistic, and the shortage situation continues. Seagate's hard drive shipments this quarter were only 4.7 million units, a 4% decrease from last year's level. The shortage of components is also a factor causing price increases. Similarly, hard drive manufacturer Western Digital said last month that if it wants to restore hard drive production capacity to pre-flood levels, it will not be possible until at least the third quarter of this year.

The butterfly effect caused by hard disks will inevitably continue to expand in the IT industry chain. The tight supply of hard disks will bring considerable pressure to computer manufacturers. Judging from the situation this year, with the arrival of the peak season for computer sales, the hard disk market in major cities will basically usher in a peak period of price increases. The price increase of branded computers and notebook computers has become an inevitable result. However, this should not be what consumers want to see. For the storage industry, this year may not be just the world of mechanical hard disks.

The opportunity for solid-state hard drives to drop in price significantly comes this year

With the crazy increase in hard disk prices, SSDs, after years of forbearance, finally began to take action. Now that hard disk prices have risen sharply, while flash memory prices have continued to fall, this opportunity for SSDs is indeed rare. 2012 is destined to be a year of fierce competition in NAND flash memory. The price of 64Gbit (8GB) TLC NAND is moving below $5, and the product process is also shifting to 2xnm and below 20nm, effectively reducing the cost of products. The price of MLC NAND flash memory will also approach 256Gbit (32GB) 35 US dollars, and 128Gbit (16GB) will also drop to 16 US dollars.

In addition, a market research company further stated that due to the sluggish sales of personal computers, smart phones and tablets, the price of NAND flash memory chips with a capacity of more than 64Gb has dropped significantly. Mainstream NAND flash memory chip manufacturers are recently starting to upgrade their manufacturing process technology, which will greatly increase the production capacity of NAND flash memory chips, and price cuts are inevitable.

Some experts predict that by the second half of 2012, the price of mainstream PC solid state drives will drop to $1 per GB, which is within the consumer's affordability. By 2012, the market share of solid state drives is expected to grow to 15.9%. Kingston Asia Pacific Flash Business Director Su Zhiyuan also said that the average price of NAND flash memory will drop to $1 per GB in the third quarter of 2012. The industry believes that this is the threshold price for SSDs to start replacing mechanical hard drives.

On the other hand, since Intel introduced the concept of ultrabooks, the ultrabooks currently on the market basically use solid-state drives as storage media, and there are also hybrid hard drives consisting of "solid-state drives + traditional hard drives". The large-scale appearance of these books will also make solid-state drives popular faster and earlier.

This year, the highlight is still cloud storage, which is safer and more convenient

If you ask about the highlights in information technology last year, cloud storage must be one of them. Although many friends may not understand the concept of cloud storage, everyone must be familiar with its name. This technology can not only be used for commercial purposes, but also benefits consumer-level individual users. It will still be one of the biggest highlights this year.

Cloud storage is a new concept that extends and develops from the concept of cloud computing. It refers to a system that uses cluster applications, grid technology, or distributed file systems to bring together a large number of different types of storage devices in the network through application software to work together and provide external data storage and business access functions.

When the core of cloud computing system operations and processing is the storage and management of large amounts of data, a large number of storage devices need to be configured in the cloud computing system, and then the cloud computing system is transformed into a cloud storage system. Therefore, cloud storage is a cloud computing system with data storage and management as its core.

CES201 Trends High-speed Mobile Cloud Storage Era

In this year's CES2012 storage products, we can clearly see this trend - the advent of the era of high-speed mobile cloud storage:

Buffalo, an external and network storage manufacturer, showcased two personal cloud storage products at the conference - CloudStor CS-WV and CloudStor CS-X. These two products allow home users to more easily share data and deploy personal cloud storage.

Synology's CloudStation can also automatically sync user files to Synology NAS, desktop computers and laptops to create a private cloud for users. This way, users can still access and edit content even when offline, and synchronize updates to other devices when they are back online.

At CES, LG also highlighted a complete set of "Home Cloud NAS" solutions consisting of network storage products, and proposed the "My Cloud Sharing" concept - find the required files by accessing NAS; save multimedia files on smartphones directly to LG NAS through Mobile App 2.0; use smartphones and tablets to receive real-time video streams to monitor everything happening at home through USB cameras connected to LG NAS; use LG NAS Smart TV applications to share pictures and other content with family members in different locations.

Hard drive price increase may not be a bad thing. A new era is coming.

At present, cloud storage basic services are applied to the Internet, application software, consumer electronics, mobile devices and other fields to serve the general public. With the explosive growth of various intelligent electronic devices such as smart phones, tablet computers, smart TVs, multimedia PCs, etc., the sharing and exchange of massive data information between terminals has become an inevitable trend, and the demand for cloud storage services has also ushered in an astonishing growth period. If 2011 was the year of hype for cloud computing and cloud storage concepts, then 2012 will be the year of explosion of cloud storage applications.

At the same time, the use of public clouds has revolutionized computing, especially for unpredictable consumer-oriented applications. For organizations that need to deal with various regulations, standards and other non-technical issues, private clouds are indispensable. It depends on the actual needs of the enterprise. However, hybrid cloud services - that is, services that combine public and private clouds - will continue to be a pragmatic choice for most organizations.

For 2012, the weakness of hard disks will further highlight the role of SSD and cloud storage technology, allowing consumer storage users to experience better service and enjoyment. Perhaps the increase in hard disk prices is not a bad thing, but also an opportunity to upgrade storage in advance.