SSDs will be an almost ideal addition to enterprise storage systems. Notebooks? Not so much.
1.Many drives vs. one drive. SSDs replace multiple disk drives in high-end enterprise systems. Notebooks use SSDs as a one-for-one replacement, which wastes most of the game-changing advantages of flash.
2.Servers need speed, notebooks need capacity. Servers can use SSD’s blazing performance without requiring much capacity. SSD performance matters little to a notebook, but hundreds of gigabytes are needed per drive. SSDs biggest weakness is cost per gigabyte.
3. SSD power consumption matters more to the enterprise. Notebooks care about power, but the drive’s share of a notebook’s power draw doesn’t make that much difference in battery life. High-end enterprise systems have a heat problem from multiple drives in a small space that SSD will help to alleviate.
4. Notebooks don’t leverage SSD speed. A notebook’s boot time and performance depend on many factors beyond access time. High-end systems use many drives striped in parallel to maximize performance – a perfect opportunity for a much faster device.
Even in Enterprise, the devil is in the details
So let’s go, right? Not so fast, cowboy! One way SSD is less suited for the data center than notebooks is in durability. Unlike notebooks, high-end systems work storage devices like dogs. SSDs are improving, but today’s products can wear out before their time. Losing data in a notebook doesn’t compare with losing it in a high-end business application. And standards are a bigger deal in the data center.
Ready-for-prime-time versions will be available starting in 2009. In the meantime, it’s smart to start playing with the technology now so you’re ready to implement in volume next year.
Buy a fancy SSD notebook, too, if you’re a Techie or want to act like one. If not, it’s probably a waste of your money.
My first blog post a year ago was about my full drive on my work PC. Since then I’ve expanded to 100 gigabytes. Nothing like my home PC, but work space requirements tend to be lower.
I’m in the midst of changing my backup method from a local desktop backup drive to a BlackArmor portable drive. It allows me to backup my work remotely. It’s got Seagate Secure technology, which means it’s hackproof – no worries about losing sensitive information.
I expect my next laptop to have a Seagate Secure encrypted drive inside as well.
Someday it will be considered stupid – and maybe illegal – to use a hard drive that’s not self-encrypting in a business PC.
SSD sounds great, but the reality doesn’t match the dream
Solid State Technology talked to Seagate and Fujitsu SSD leaders and came to the same conclusions posted here before - SSDs for notebooks may sound like a great match, but it’s just not happening.
Why? Price – big difference! Boot time and battery life – little to no difference.
Yes, there are small opportunities for ultra-high end early adopters and ultra-portable mini-PCs. But the total opportunity for SSDs over the next several years will be miniscule compared to disk drives.
Enterprise is a larger and more profitable niche for SSDs – but even there the opportunity is at the tip of the storage iceberg that will remain dominated by disk.
Granted, lawsuits don’t often settle for the amount proposed, and the lawsuit isn’t just about the data. But it’s another step up the monetary value ladder for personal information.
An individual, not a class action suit
What’s extraordinary is that this is an individual. Until now, the ”scandals” around personal data loss have related to personal records from thousands or millions of individuals. I’ve posted several times on these events – here and here, for example.
Encrypted laptops are the future
The clear message: data on laptops needs to be secure! Seagate’s got a take on this – check it out.
What’s your data worth? How much would you sue for the information on your PC? Let’s compare notes.
More from Jean Charles Compagnon, IT manager for APEX IT. Making deals on airplanes, Oracle demos via laptop, outfitting billable employees vs. non-billable staff, selective security.
Slow-motion video shows a laptop disk drive bracing for a fall
What’s the one irreplaceable piece of a notebook computer? Any data that’s not backed up. The latest in laptop data protection is a zero-G sensor that automatically parks a hard drive head whenever a laptop goes into free fall.
This is an extremely slow-motion video of an actual disk drive head being parked as the drive falls. The drive spins at 7200 rpm, which is seen here as very slow rotation. Note the bounce at the bottom!
More facts about the zero-G sensor and the G-Force Protection feature on Seagate’s Momentus 7200 drive:
It is fast enough to protect in drops as little as 7 inches
It senses in 3 axes, allowing it to “feel” head-over-heels tumbles as well as a simple vertical drop
The drive is plug-compatible with standard laptop drives, and requires no configuration to enable the feature
I ran out of room on my laptop the other day. I’m pumped!
That’s kind of why I’m starting this blog.
It’s not that I like unplanned interruptions and computer problems. OK, it’s more of a nuisance than a problem really. But Disk Cleanup and compression only bought me time. One of these days I’ll have to go to IT and submit to The Process to get a bigger drive for my two-year old machine. Not looking forward to that.
What turns my crank is that I’ve never run out of space before. I’m not a Luddite, but I’m not a leading edge techno-guy either. If I can fill my drive at work, then it’s probably happening to a sizable group of others. What are you seeing?
It’s one thing to run out of space at home with family videos, movies, etc. But this is office stuff (mostly). I know what put me over the edge, too: free downloads of NBC season pilot edisodes on Amazon Unbox. Something to watch on a business trip to Portland. One click each, totally free. Just like that, 4 GB.
Make no mistake, as a Seagate employee I know this trend is good for business. In fact, the demand for drives today is outpacing what all six of the world’s disk drive manufacturers combined seem to be able to get out the door.
But the bigger deal to me is that data and storage are moving up the value chain. It’s not about bits and bytes; it’s changing the way we get through the day. If you’re a system builder and you’re still selling storage the way you did 5 years ago, as a commodity component buried on your Bill of Materials, you’re missing the boat.
Do you see a change in your customers around storage? Are you getting more for your solutions because your customers need more storage, and more ways to manage and protect their information? Are YOU running out of space?
