Storage Effect

Storage devices have a higher calling than processors or memory chips

In the 90’s I was a semiconductor guy.  I worked in some of the highest tech chip fabs in Korea, Taiwan, Japan and the US as we deployed lithography equipment.  One of those cleanrooms was at Seagate. 

Why?  Because since the mid-90’s, disk drive read/write heads have been manufactured with semiconductor-like processes.  These heads are arguably the most enabling component in a disk drive. There are from one to ten of these chips in every disk drive manufactured today.  So solid state technology isn’t unfamiliar to those in the disk drive world.

Information Middlemen

So why are SSD’s so slow to replace disk drives?  Read/write heads, like memory chips and processors, are information “middlemen”.  It’s one thing to have data pass through a chip.  It’s quite another to store it there indefinitely. 

Stewards of the Data

Storage devices have a higher calling than processors, temporary memory and sensors: they are the stewards of the Data – the all-important lifeblood of every business and the content that entertains us. 

Disk drives have earned the right to play this role.  Solid state technology has some growing up to do before it is knighted the Keeper of the Data.