Solid State Drives are generally believed to be the next-generation storage solution that will eventually replace the current, traditional hard drives in both enterprise and consumer market segments. However, although the technology has advanced significantly, SSDs are still regarded as an unnecessary storage upgrade solution, compared with high-end HDDs.

 

The main reason for that is the significantly higher price per gigabyte ratio of SSDs, compared with current solutions, which keeps potential customers away from considering SSDs are an alternative to current traditional hard disk drives. On that note, a recent article on Computerworld indicates that companies could find a strong ROI (Return of Investment) in adopting higher-priced SSDs over traditional hard drives.

 

As of now, we are seeing a number of flash-based storage solutions being released by several makers, some of which are new to the storage market, which is still being led by major storage companies such as Seagate and Western Digital, both of which are yet to adventure into the SSD market. The article on Computerworld shows how companies are slowly taking an interest in the development of SSDs, and the way the new technology can help them improve their business. However, despite a natural interest in the new solutions, most companies are still playing the sit and watch game, choosing to wait for costs to come down before moving to implementing SSDs as storage solutions.

 

It appears that some companies are aware of the benefits brought by SSDs over traditional HDDs, but at the same time, they also know very well the financial implications of such solutions, which are still far from being considered a reliable alternative, at least in most cases. As an example, George Crump, an analyst at Storage Switzerland LLC, noted that stock traders and financial services firms, which depend heavily on fast data-flow speeds, could benefit from the new technology. Such companies, he said, could choose from two types of SSDs, namely dynamic RAM-based and flash-based solutions, each one bringing its advantages and disadvantages.

 

Despite the ongoing skepticism regarding the adoption of SSDs, it is widely believed among industry analysts that solid state drives sales will record a significant market growth in the upcoming years.