Global solid state drive (SSD) shipments grew 14% to surpass 11 million units in 2009, according to IDC. Looking forward, the research firm said SSD adoption will continue to experience tangible growth in 2010 and beyond, with shipments expected to achieve a CAGR of 54% over the 2008-2013 forecast period.
"Despite lingering uncertainties around the economy, IDC remains positive on the outlook for SSDs and believes the trajectories for shipment and revenue growth are a source of optimism moving forward," said Jeff Janukowicz, research manager, Hard Disk Drive Components and Solid State Drives at IDC.
Pricing remains a key metric for SSD adoption in all market segments, IDC indicated. The slowdown in IT spending over the past 18 months has led to production cutbacks in NAND semiconductors, subsequently slowing overall SSD price reductions.
However, the long term decline in the cost of NAND memory will translate into lower price points for SSDs, IDC said. These lower price points, coupled with increased SSD capacities, will make them a compelling alternative to HDDs in certain market segments.
IDC believes that the largest market opportunity for SSDs will be in PCs. One is as an alternative to an HDD in a traditional notebook where the user is willing to pay a premium for the anticipated performance benefits of an SSD. The second avenue lies in offering a low-cost storage alternative for use in mini-notebooks. In both cases, SSD price points and storage capacities must be competitive with HDD costs before broader adoption will occur, IDC said.
In the enterprise, IDC believes that SSDs complement HDDs for certain applications. The desire for increased performance, better utilization, faster access times, and lower power consumption is providing an increasing opportunity for SSD-based solutions in the datacenter where there is a premium on high performance.