Big data, the cloud and a staggering plethora of applications are generating a giant demand for storage. IDC (News - Alert) says the worldwide market for flash-based array storage reached $11.3 billion last year, driven by complex workloads and a need to build out data centers to deliver a variety of enterprise storage services.
According to analysis from Forbes, the storage marketplace is very much fragmented between solid state and rotating disk offerings. Some vendors and buyers firmly believe that solid state and flash are the way of the future when it comes to enterprise storage, and are converting their data centers fully to solid state.
But others believe rotating disk pricing will always be lower than solid state and are using flash merely to augment their existing storage environments and disk arrays. This school of thought also encompasses hybrid arrays, which consist of flash plus disk used in tandem.
ReportsnReports forecasts the worldwide enterprise storage market is set to grow at 15 percent CAGR through 2019, with solid state drives fueling much of that growth. Other factors include virtualization-optimized storage and practices like automated storage tiering, fueled by cloud growth and a need for efficiency and automation.
It is unlikely one group will fully win out in popularity and pricing when it comes to storage solutions. Creative pricing and warranties are a big factor when it comes to enterprise executives making a decision on storage, and of course, workloads are becoming increasingly complex and intensive, which plays a role. It would appear that for the foreseeable future, traditional rotating disk solutions will have a firm position, most likely augmented by flash-based offerings to handle specific tasks. But solid state and flash are certainly gaining more footing in the general market and trends in mobility, cloud and big data storage and analysis will only solidify that footing.