tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5643271285553010552024-03-13T12:07:09.444-07:00SSD NewsMKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-86378637175652793932020-05-15T14:43:00.004-07:002020-05-15T14:43:47.751-07:005 Takeaways from HDD and SSD Market Reports<br />
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We were reviewing some reports on SSD and HDD market in Q1
2020 and the impact to the memory and Storage businesses. <o:p></o:p>Mark Webb, MKW Ventures Consulting, rev 0</div>
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Note: in my terminology: “enterprise” includes datacenter,
cloud, hyperscale, classic enterprise definitions. Not PC, Not CE<o:p></o:p></div>
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Takeaways:</div>
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<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><u>SSD growth in Enterprise</u></b><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">: SSD
capacity grow in the Enterprise was ~125% YoY in Q1. While NAND prices stabilized
in Late 2019 and then increased in Q1, The revenue for Enterprise SSD was just
now approaching mid 2018 numbers. Capacity growth was accelerated by previous
price crash and end result is revenue back to 2018 numbers. Since NAND prices
increased recently, we would expect growth to be affected.</span></div>
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<b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><u>SSD Growth in Client</u></b><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">: SSD Capacity
increased 75% YoY in Q1 2020. Client SSD revenue is at all time high as bits have
nearly tripled since the NAND price peak in mid 2018. This market is still the
most competitive with very low margins but it also drives adoption of the newest
NAND technologies with more layers and QLC. Client SSDs passed Client HDDs in
units sold back in Q1 2019 and the gap continues to grow as client SSDs (units)
outsell HDDs 2:1. Due to small size of SSDs and larger size of HDDs…. HDD
Capacity outsells SSD capacity 2:1. Interesting symmetry!</span></div>
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<b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><u>Overall bit growth:</u></b><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> this places
NAND bit growth in SSDs just short of 2x per year. SSDs are where most bits are
shipped and by far the fastest growth. Mobile is struggling in 2020 so NAND
will require SSD growth to continue to absorb capacity and prevent inventory
builds.</span></div>
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<b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><u>Market share leaders</u></b><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">: Samsung leads
in both Enterprise and in Client in capacity shipped and although the competition
is working hard to gain especially in Enterprise, Samsung holds on. Intel is second
in enterprise, WD is second in Client. This just in: Samsung is kinda dominant
in memories</span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><u>HDD Vs SSD numbers</u></b><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">: SSD are
growing at a faster percentage than HDDs and people expect that someday SSD replace
HDDs. This may happen someday but we are still a long way away from that. More
bits are added to HDD than SSD every year by a wide margin. 83% of bits shipped
are HDD. In enterprise 90% of bits shipped are HDD. Reasons:</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">a.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->SSDs are faster but HDDs are still much cheaper
in both client and enterprise. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">b.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Client and nearline are not as performance
obsessed<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">c.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->HDD costs are dropping faster than we predicted…
and innovation continues<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">d.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->SSD dominate in the performance applications in
the datacenter. But those are the dominant consumer of bits.<o:p></o:p></div>
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Lots more reasons and detailed data on this <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><u>Bonus</u></b>: Mission critical 10K and 15K HDDs…. A market
I said should disappear in 2015 since there is no logical reason for them …. Still
sell with only minor capacity erosion over time. Reason: Once something is
established, enterprise is very slow to move away from it. Remember that.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Mark Webb<br />
<a href="http://www.mkwventures.com/">www.mkwventures.com</a><br />
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<br />MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-25710251937501264182019-10-29T15:30:00.000-07:002019-10-29T15:31:51.089-07:00A Quick Summary on the Micron X100 3D XPoint SSD<br />
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A quick Summary on Micron X100 3D XPoint SSD.<br />
THE Fastest SSD in the World!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Reminder: Micron will use the term 3D Xpoint. Intel, who owns
the copyright to this term, will not use it. They use the term Optane Memory
Media</div>
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Micron announced the worlds Fastest SSD, the x100 SSD. 2.5M
IOPS, 9GB/Sec, 8uSec Latency. It is based on second generation 3D Xpoint. We
showed the cost and density for this chip early in the year and again at FMS in
2019. And yes, we were correct in our predictions for what the chip would look
like.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I bought 2 of them on Amazon last night…. JUST KIDDING!!.
The product is not available to anyone yet and is supposed to sample to some
select customer by the end of the year. It is apparently becoming more common
to announce products that have not sampled with anyone yet. Standard qualification
processes and history would indicate that the product is a year from volumes sales
(More on this later).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>FACTS</b></div>
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Product is a full height card. </li>
<li>Product is PCIe3 x16. If you do x16, you will get some serious
bandwidth. </li>
<li>If you build a x16 SSD with 3D XPoint and optimize it for
speed, it will be the fastest SSD.</li>
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<b>Some speculation from MKW Ventures (I will confirm when I
get data<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<li>Density wasn’t announced but someone mentioned 750GByte at
meeting</li>
<li>The product is probably heavily overprovisioned and costs $1000s
of dollars per SSD. It is aimed only at the fastest market. If it was available, pricing would probably be in the $10/GByte region.</li>
<li>The product is probably FPGA based. The x16, FPGA, and the
overall formfactor indicate that this is test vehicle and will not ramp in
volume ( ie 100s of units sold total). Micron did this before with their super
fast SLC NAND SSDs and IDT controller (P320h). They were very very fast and
sold in very small numbers. <u>This is not a bad thing</u>, it allows Micron to learn,
customers to try it out, and Micron to develop a product that will ramp. Plus
you can do some fun virtual memory stuff with low latency SSDs like this.</li>
<li>This product and its follow on products will compete in the low
latency SSD market with Intel, Samsung, Toshiba. It’s a real market, the volumes
are just very low at this time. They will follow the ramp that NVMe SSDs have
over the last 6 years. </li>
<li>We don’t expect to see 3D Xpoint DIMMS from Micron anytime
soon. These require custom memory controller or a NVDIMM-P or CXL or GenZ like
bus. None of those are ready yet. </li>
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<b>Summary:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<li>Micron has a 3D XPoint SSD that they will sample this year. It
is second generation 4 layer 3D Xpoint</li>
<li>It is arguably the fastest SSD available (when it ships). </li>
<li>It is confirmation that Micron plans to plan in the 3D Xpoint
market</li>
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Mark Webb</div>
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www.mkwventures.com</div>
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<br />MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-71567938887080444302019-03-27T15:42:00.000-07:002019-03-27T15:42:16.175-07:00Memory and Storage Speeds on Optane DIMMS<br />
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Memory and Storage Speeds on Optane DIMMS<o:p></o:p></div>
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At Flash Memory Summit, I showed why 3D XPoint was
advertised as 1000x faster but ended up only 7x Faster. It has to do with the
fact that individual IOPS, latency, sequential read speed may or may not be limiting
factor. Actual impact is always less. The best example is based on HDD to SSD
comparisons from the many benchmarking sites. SSDs are technically 500x faster
than HDDs… but in most applications your apps run <2x faster....<o:p></o:p></div>
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Next week, Intel will publicly update us with
info on Cascade Lake and Optane DIMMS. The above mentioned challenge will be a
bit of a two edged sword for Optane DIMMS.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Optane DIMMS used as persistent memory will be
50 times faster than NVMe SSDs based on latency and bus speeds. This sounds
great but we will find most applications do not see that level of benefit. The UCSD
team did a great study on this. Whether it is worth the price and time to
optimize is up to you and your applications</span></li>
<li>On the other hand, Optane DIMMs used in main
memory with a DRAM cache (“memory mode”) will provide tons of main memory that
is theoretically 7-10x slower that DRAM RDIMMs based on latency… but actual speed difference
will be less than that and if the data is “cache friendly”, maybe 90% of
applications will see no measurable difference in actual use. Lots of memory,
lower cost than DRAM, same measurable performance in most cases. Whether it is
worth the price and time to optimize is up to you and your applications</li>
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So we will find that in actual use, Optane DIMMS are not 50x
faster than SSDs… but they are not 10x slower than DRAM either. We will see
what performance actual customers see in months to come<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-77618597591659372882019-03-20T12:06:00.001-07:002019-03-20T12:06:10.673-07:00Cost and Performance of Optane DIMM Options in Use Today<br />
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Now that we have information on the performance of Optane
DIMMs and data on recommended configurations from Intel, we are updating a blog
from last year on cost and performance<o:p></o:p></div>
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Reference configuration is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">192GB DRAM with 1TB NVMe SSD</b>. </div>
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With Optane, Intel is proposing <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">128GB DRAM with 1.5TB of Optane</b> operating
in memory mode (volatile/not persistent). The purpose is to add lots of cheaper, slower main memory. Persistence doesnt matter</div>
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Cost is about the same as today's
configuration. What can we expect from this configuration? In theory…<o:p></o:p></div>
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Read Latency
is 5-7x higher for Optane, but speed (MT/S) is only 3x slower for Optane. This
is the same effect we see on latency vs speed in DDR2,3,4 transitions<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Data sets larger than 192GB would <u>run much
faster</u> on Optane DIMMS as no swapping is required with SSD<o:p></o:p></div>
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Datasets between 128 and 192GB would run slower
because you got rid of some of the DRAM and replaced it with Optane. These now
run with some of the memory running at 1/3 the speed<o:p></o:p></div>
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The trade off is simple. cost is the same. Do
you have large datasets taking up more than 192GBs of memory? Are you OK with
1/3 the performance when accessing the Optane vs DRAM?</div>
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Reminder: In Memory mode the Optane is configured
by controller as volatile memory.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A second configuration is App direct mode. In this mode we
have true persistent memory. You can use it with load/store commands like
memory or block level storage like SSDs. An example is replacing the NVMe
SSD with persistent memory. Simplistic sense, Its like an SSD on the DRAM bus. Example</div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Replace 512GB NVMe accelerator SSD with 512GBs
of Optane persistent memory in app direct mode.</span></li>
<li>Cost goes from ~$400 for NVMe to ~$1800 for Optane
DIMMs.</li>
<li>When accessing the Optane DIMM the speed is
<b>10-50x faster</b> depending on your metric and application.</li>
<li>It is persistent so data is never lost</li>
<li>Much more expensive but as an accelerator, much
faster.</li>
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If you are an IT expert, a great summary of performance
improvement seen from Optane DIMMs is shown here from the UCSD NVM Team. <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.05714">https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.05714</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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We have a matrix of lots of cost/performance options,
including NVDIMMS available from other suppliers (Samsung, Netlist, Micron,
Viking, Smart Modular, etc). call for more info.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Mark Webb</div>
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<a href="http://www.mkwventures.com/">www.mkwventures.com</a></div>
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MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-69314321902888440602019-01-28T07:28:00.001-08:002019-01-28T07:38:25.682-08:00Five Thoughts from 2019 SNIA Persistent Memory Summit<br />
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Last week I attended the Persistent Memory Summit in Santa
Clara. This is a great one day conference each year bringing together experts
on Persistent Memory examples, system support, and applications. The presentations
are posted and there is a video as well (thank you SNIA!)</div>
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5 thoughts:</div>
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<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Now that persistent memory has moved from a “wouldn’t
it be great if we had this?” concept to a “we have some options, now what?”
debate…. We need to define “persistent memory” based on the new reality. Rob
Peglar and Stephen Bates reminded us that using the term SCM is not politically
correct and can only be used in a safe space away miles from a SNIA conference
(Starbucks Milpitas worked for me). This is good since it was way too vague and
theoretical. Andy Rudoff offered a simple definition: it needs to be address in
load/store like memory (Not blocks and pages), and persistent. Speed is in the
eye of the beholder but a year ago there was a definition of <2us latency in
applications which I liked. The NVDIMM-N and NVDIMM-P definitions would
indicate that it does not need to be one type of memory but is a DIMM or system.
These simple definitions would seem to eliminate some products that are often
referred to as “persistent memory” (side discussion)</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">The most common persistent memory today arguably
is NVDIMM-N which provides us with up to 32GB DIMMS that can be written to like
DRAM but never lose data. The challenges here are that the use of DRAM for
entire capacity plus NAND plus energy support leads to a high cost that is 3x
or more per bit compared to DRAM. As a result, a small amount of systems (typically
SANs) use them today. Multiple providers were at the conference and you can buy
this persistent memory whenever you wish.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Frank Hady presented Intel Optane Persistent
Memory and the applications. Two modes, one is persistent memory (App Direct)
and one is memory Mode (which loses data on power cycle). Memory mode is great
for adding tons of memory that is somewhat slower and cheaper but it is not
persistent per Intel documentation. This is poised to grow rapidly with Intel
backing but it is off to a slow start. From talking to customers, most say they
still can’t get Optane PM to build their own system and the availability today
is running apps on cloud systems. I have details on modes and projected revenue
in other publications</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">NVDIMM-P is proposed as an open source version
similar to Optane PM where the architecture supports some DRAM plus NAND or
other memory type to optimize for cost. This will allow DIMMs that are LESS
expensive than DRAM, higher density, and more non-proprietary options. We need
this ASAP! When can I get one???</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">From the conference, it feels like Infrastructure
support and application drivers are ahead of the actual hardware…. This is
probably not totally true but there is drive from Intel and SNIA to get all the
support in place and the OS supports it and we have applications. Once Intel ships
significant volume and competitors start shipping their versions of PM, we can
test out all the applications</span></li>
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See more info on our blogs or website. Thanks to Chris
Mellor of Register fame for republishing some of my FMS work on persistent
memory and Optane with all the gory details and numbers. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Mark Webb<br />
<a href="http://www.mkwventures.com/">www.mkwventures.com</a><br />
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<br />MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-66605996442780815312019-01-22T08:38:00.000-08:002019-01-23T08:02:23.225-08:00Relative Cost and Price for Optane and other MemoryJan 2019 UPDATED: What are the relative costs for the memory types in new SSDs and DIMMs? We have the estimates below!<br />
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This was shown about a year ago and is still a good representation of what is going on. All of the costs are lower (we publish a monthly report with details).... but the summary is still true.<br />
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<ul>
<li>3D XPoint is lower cost than DRAM today and is selling for half the price of DRAM or less in DIMMs and SSDs (volumes are low and yes Intel loses money on this). </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>3D XPoint will decrease in cost with ramp and maturity. It is not fully ramped yet as demand is not there yet. Also 2nd Gen will be 30% cheaper.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Optane DIMMs are now known to have a controller and DRAM on each DIMM so the DIMM has some additional cost compared to DRAM. Plus they are overprovisioned more than DRAM DIMMS</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Fast NAND (Low Latency NAND) is still much cheaper and is useful in Fast SSDs and NVDIMM-P applications. We expect Low latency NAND from Samsung, Toshiba, WDC, and Hynix in 2019 (YMTC someday ... and yes we have data on when someday is)</li>
</ul>
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Actual values, assumptions, prices and how these will change over the next two years is available as well<br />
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We will be at persistent memory summit if you want to discuss details more. Text us to chat.<br />
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#flashmem<br />
#optane<br />
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Mark Webb<br />
<a href="http://www.mkwventures.com/">www.mkwventures.com</a><br />
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MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-66507462243746064752019-01-16T16:56:00.002-08:002019-01-16T16:57:04.060-08:00Intel Optane H10 Vs Samsung 970EVO<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Intel announced an Optane H10 Hybrid SSD at CES last week. How might it compare to Samsung 970EVO on cost and performance?<br />
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Intel announced a Optane H10 M.2 SSD which will be in laptops sometime in Q2 or Q3. It combines Intel optane memory (the 16G or 32G cache for HDD) and a Intel QLC SSD all on one module. Optane/3D XPoint acts as a cache for the QLC SSD. By merging them together, Intel sells both NAND and 3D Xpoint and saves the PC manufacturer a M.2 slot. It is two SSDs on one board managed by Intel RST driver and custom firmware<br />
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Performance: we can expect that the Optane will perform like other Optane Memory tests. Lower latency on anything cached, slow down to SSD (QLC in this case) performance on huge serial transfers. This alone will make it a high performance SSD. Most likely faster than 970EVO on QD1 latency and speed, slightly slower than 970 on large file transfers or un-cached as QLC is slower than TLC in most applications. Power is unknown but historically, Optane is a power hungry technology<br />
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Cost is the key as always: Our data indicates H10 cost is slightly higher than 970EVO at 500GB, slightly lower than 970EVO at 1TB. See details below. Since Intel is highly motivated to sell this product to move its built up NAND and 3D XPoint inventory, they can price it aggressively... even at cost. This should make it a competitive product for PC OEMs. Not HDD cheap, and not as cheap as Intel's pure QLC NVMe SSD but a less expensive SSD with high NVMe performance.<br />
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It should be a solid competitor to 970EVO for the highest performance notebook storage.<br />
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H10 Review<br />
<a href="https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-optane-h10-qlc-ssd,38387.html">https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-optane-h10-qlc-ssd,38387.html</a><br />
<br />
Optane Memory Review<br />
<a href="https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-optane-3d-xpoint-memory,5032.html">https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-optane-3d-xpoint-memory,5032.html</a><br />
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970EVO Review<br />
<a href="https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-970-evo-ssd-review,5573.html">https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-970-evo-ssd-review,5573.html</a><br />
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We have costs for all SSDs, NAND, and new NVM technologies along with performance numbers for Optane/3d XPoint<br />
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Mark Webb<br />
www.mkwventures.com<br />
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<br />MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-6203130337736981762018-12-09T13:44:00.000-08:002018-12-09T13:44:20.854-08:00NVMe SSD Capacity Growth through 2025<br />
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At the NVMe Developer Days Conference last week, there were multiple presentations on applications, reference designs, NVMe over Fabric solutions and examples. At the end, I presented unit and EB growth numbers for 2018 through 2025 for NVMe Devices.<br />
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Takeaway:<br />
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<li>NVMe Client SSD Capacity will grow at <b>48% CAGR</b> through 2025 (growth declines over time with saturation)</li>
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<li>NVMe Enterprise/Datacenter Capacity will grow at <b>57% CAGR</b> through 2025 (No saturation)</li>
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These numbers are based on attach rates, EB growth, shift from SATA/SAS to NVMe over time. </div>
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<li>What is needed to support this growth?: multiple solutions from multiple vendors at multiple segment levels for NVMe. This will bring price drops needed. This has already started in 2018 and is expected to continue</li>
<li>What is limiting this?: Enterprise storage is a slow, conservative business. 15K HDDs continue to sell by the millions despite being an inferior solution to SSDs in performance applications. </li>
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Call for more information on how NVMe is transforming the future of storage</div>
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Mark Webb</div>
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<a href="http://www.mkwventures.com/">www.mkwventures.com</a></div>
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MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-78521998619504496852018-07-18T13:06:00.003-07:002018-07-18T13:57:57.139-07:00Optane DIMMs: What is it, how fast, how much?<br />
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You got questions? We got Answers. A while back, Intel announced more about Optane DIMMS for data center. Vague information on when customers can get it ("select customers some time in 2018, volume sometime in 2019"). No information on speed or endurance. Densities are 128GB-512GB DIMMS. Fortunately we at MKW Ventures have models for what it is and how it works and how much it costs. Updates below with lots of additional information available.<br />
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While you can't buy it today and we don't know when you can buy it, Intel committed that you can test it out in the cloud sometime soon.<br />
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Questions from My January Blog and some answers based on a our model<br />
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<li><b>What is in a Optane DIMM?</b> its up to 10 XPoint packages+ smaller controller, power unit and buffers. It has 20% overprovisioning on the DIMM plus about 10% overprovisioning on the chip itself</li>
<li><b>How fast will an Optane DIMM be?</b> Intel says it works at DDR4 speed we assume this is 2133-2666+ MT/S. Latency is between DRAM and NAND (we can discuss the actual latency)</li>
<li><b>What will the price be?</b> Servers with Optane DIMMS will be very expensive. Standard case will be 192GB of RDRAM plus 1TB of Optane DIMMS. In this case, the price just for the DRAM and Optane will be >$7500 </li>
<li><b>What is the optimal DRAM DIMM to Optane DIMM ratio in a server configuration?</b> Intel initial configuration is 1:5. Still need lots of DRAM as >90% of operations access the DRAM, not the Optane.</li>
<li><b>How many applications will have been optimized for persistent memory by end of 2018? </b>lots are in development now. But Optane will be in less than 10% of servers being sold in December 2018</li>
</ul>
<div>
More ...new ... questions from May 30th presentation</div>
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<div>
<ul>
<li><b>What is endurance of Optane DIMM</b>: Intel said they will last as long as system. We have modeled actual cycles possible and how it is managed to meet the criteria Intel committed to</li>
<li><b>Is it really DDR4 compatible:</b> on size and electrical and thermal.... the answer is "sort of". We have the details but it depends on the motherboard.</li>
<li><b>Why do I still need DRAM in large amount on my server? </b>correct ratio of Optane to DRAM is 5:1 to 10:1. We have models why this is</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
Intel won't provide the info on Availability, latency, cost, price, % of systems that will have optane DIMMs. Fortunately we will provide that to you and we can discuss in person at Flash Memory Summit in August</div>
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Mark Webb</div>
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<a href="http://www.mkwventures.com/">www.mkwventures.com</a></div>
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MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-61942245989789741312018-07-18T08:44:00.002-07:002018-07-18T08:47:38.176-07:00Relative Memory Costs for Today's SSDs and DIMMsUPDATED: What are the relative costs for the memory types in new SSDs and DIMMs? We have the estimates below!<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T05Il9kiEGk/W09fs2EM1VI/AAAAAAAAAK4/tv7PvPPUd4MqLApB2DraquZupjGisTDKACLcBGAs/s1600/relative%2Bcosts%2Bof%2Bmemory.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="1040" height="185" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T05Il9kiEGk/W09fs2EM1VI/AAAAAAAAAK4/tv7PvPPUd4MqLApB2DraquZupjGisTDKACLcBGAs/s320/relative%2Bcosts%2Bof%2Bmemory.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
We updated 3D XPoint and Optane costs with actual cost today vs what is should cost if it was mature and running in high volume.<br />
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Fast NAND is what we estimate for a Z-NAND type product. Other companies are working on similar Fast NAND products<br />
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Actual values, assumptions, prices and how these will change dramatically over the next two years is available as well<br />
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#flashmem<br />
#optane<br />
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<br />
Mark Webb<br />
<a href="http://www.mkwventures.com/">www.mkwventures.com</a><br />
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MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-69878490651690316212018-02-06T21:26:00.001-08:002018-02-06T21:28:19.312-08:00HDD Trends and Impacts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t2y5zQ8VNuM/WnqNSnl5lqI/AAAAAAAAAJo/grvVYR0lcDYHB58hpK7W05p7Rmg22zGCACLcBGAs/s1600/HDD%2BSSD.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="105" data-original-width="143" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t2y5zQ8VNuM/WnqNSnl5lqI/AAAAAAAAAJo/grvVYR0lcDYHB58hpK7W05p7Rmg22zGCACLcBGAs/s1600/HDD%2BSSD.JPG" /></a></div>
Multiple reports are coming out from industry analysts (Trendfocus, IDC, IHS, Gartner) on the HDD market for past year. Some interesting numbers on Units, Density, Cost, and Markets:<br />
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<ul>
<li>HDD Units relatively flat in 400Mu unit range for past 2 years (down from 2010 peak ~600M Units) . Less PCs sold and SSD encroachment in notebooks reduced TAM. </li>
<li>HDD Capacity increasing 15% per year or more</li>
<li>HDD Mission critical (10K+15K) units <u>down 25% from peak in 2012, Revenue down 50%</u></li>
<li>HDD Mission critical (10K+15K) capacity <u>is flat for past 2 years</u></li>
<li>HDD PC Capacity is relatively flat for past few years. CE and Enterprise Capacity is up.</li>
<li>HDD Cost and price per TB is down 12%+ per year. 500GB HDDs sell for less than $30 to PC OEMs</li>
</ul>
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<br />
Lots more data available and how this affects the NAND/SSD market over the next few years<br />
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Some thoughts:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>10K and 15K market should be dead. SSDs are better and lower price per IOP... but its a slow death (Even though HDD makers </li>
<ul>
<li>SSDs should be this entire market with 25M units or more per year</li>
<li>SATA/PCIe will take this over in next 3-5 years</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>HDD Nearline market is growing rapidly with little impact from SSDs expected. >6TBs per drive at a cost well below $30/TB and costs dropping 10-15% per year. The date explosions is driving this market for storage</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Now that NAND shortage is over, we expect SSDs resume steady penetration into PC market. Most PCs still ship with HDDs today. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>We are still several years away from SSD units outselling HDD Units . 10+ years from SSD capacity outselling SSD capacity</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
Mark Webb<br />
<a href="http://www.mkwventures.com/">www.mkwventures.com</a><br />
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<br />MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-44549441396575821902018-02-02T14:51:00.000-08:002018-02-02T14:53:09.585-08:00Relative Costs for NAND, ZNAND, Optane Memory<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fXBZXtt0_9U/WeQo-QsRn5I/AAAAAAAAAGs/tWrGDV0ZCawhRPwu5NBIv0C40TuYt2IjACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/optane%2Bpics.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="241" data-original-width="191" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fXBZXtt0_9U/WeQo-QsRn5I/AAAAAAAAAGs/tWrGDV0ZCawhRPwu5NBIv0C40TuYt2IjACPcBGAYYCw/s200/optane%2Bpics.JPG" width="158" /></a></div>
What are the relative costs for the memory types in these new SSDs? We have the estimates below!<br />
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Caveats:<br />
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<ul>
<li>These are costs, not prices. Margins vary</li>
<li>These are approximate costs in 2018 for the memory in key products</li>
<li>All are relative to HDD costs</li>
</ul>
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HDD is of course the cost leader... everything else falls into a spectrum of costs. Some products are more mature than others and that affects their cost today<br />
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Actual values, assumptions, prices and how these will change dramatically over the next two years is available as well<br />
<br />
Mark Webb<br />
<a href="http://www.mkwventures.com/">www.mkwventures.com</a><br />
<br />
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<br />MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-79729618777651734892018-01-26T16:15:00.001-08:002018-01-26T16:15:35.696-08:00How much will Persistent Memory Options Cost in 2019?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fXBZXtt0_9U/WeQo-QsRn5I/AAAAAAAAAGs/tWrGDV0ZCawhRPwu5NBIv0C40TuYt2IjACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/optane%2Bpics.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="241" data-original-width="191" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fXBZXtt0_9U/WeQo-QsRn5I/AAAAAAAAAGs/tWrGDV0ZCawhRPwu5NBIv0C40TuYt2IjACPcBGAYYCw/s200/optane%2Bpics.JPG" width="158" /></a></div>
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I recently attended the Persistent Memory Summit 2018. <div>
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It was an outstanding conference and I was able to learn a lot on what some options for persistent memory configurations will be in 2019 and beyond. Spoiler Alert: Optane DIMMS are involved in both cheapest and most expensive options<div>
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I converted it to customer cost for Storage/Memory components in the system for some typical options including a medium SSD and big HDD<div>
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If you disagree, please tell me the correct answer (hint: Facebook, Intel, Dreamworks... my email is below). </div>
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I have specifics on why these options are probable, what the actual speeds are, and the costs for each components. Contact us for more info and system requirements estimates</div>
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<div>
Background Assumptions</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>DRAM is fastest, Optane is somewhat slower but good enough. DRAM acts as cache for Optane DIMMS (Optane requires DRAM, it doesn't replace DRAM)</li>
<li>NVDIMM-N is DRAM speed... and DRAM density ... and more expensive than DRAM. But Persistent!</li>
<li>You still need to store stuff and HDD is about 50x cheaper than Optane, 10x cheaper than SSD</li>
</ul>
</div>
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The Hypothetical Costs to a end user for some typical options</div>
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<ul>
<li>If you want TONS of addressable memory, Optane DIMMS might be the answer</li>
<li>If you want speed and persistence, NVDIMM-N might be the answer</li>
<li>If you want max speed and not persistence DRAM only might be the answer</li>
<li>If you are cheap: 64GB of DRAM plus an off brand SSD from Craigslist will do the trick</li>
</ul>
<div>
Just an opinion!</div>
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<div>
Mark Webb</div>
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<a href="http://www.mkwventures.com/">www.mkwventures.com</a></div>
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MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-64653776959514635762018-01-24T08:14:00.002-08:002018-01-24T08:14:54.081-08:00Persistent Memory Summit 2018<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Persistent Memory Summit 2018<br />
<br />
Today is the summit that brings together many of the people working in persistent memory to discuss the future, standards, and technologies.<br />
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There will be lots of discussions on standards, programming models, and changes to computing. But there are a few pragmatic questions we are getting answers to as well this week<br />
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1) Today's Technologies: NVDIMM-N is here today and is in use in many applications. How big is the market, who are the leaders, and how fast is it growing?<br />
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2) Tomorrow's Technologies: Intel has been talking about Optane DIMMs for a long time. But customers are still waiting for production DIMMs and the CPU to go with it. Are we on track for Sep 2018 availability<br />
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3) Software to take advantage of these technologies can be slow to come out. When are the leaders planning on being able to fully take advantage of large persistent memory. If I have 1-2TB of Memory... are we ready for it?<br />
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4) Overall Market... if we look at NVDIMMS from all technologies... when do we get to the bit shipments being same as DRAM DIMMS? density is 10x... so it should be quick!<br />
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<br />
Mark Webb<br />
<a href="http://www.mkwventures.com/">www.mkwventures.com</a><br />
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<br />MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-79562020617787870742018-01-07T21:32:00.002-08:002018-01-08T13:22:18.938-08:00SSD Growth Forecast in Compute Markets: Enterprise/Datacenter<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;">
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Datacenter/Enterprise: SSDs provide 30% of units and 15% of capacity sold in 2017. </div>
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Projections for ALL SSDs and applications from a number of outlets are 15-19% unit growth and 15-20% Revenue growth. We have all the details behind those numbers if you want them but some specifics on SSD/HDD ratio on Enterprise/Datacenter</div>
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SSD% of total Enterprise HDD+SSD unit sales finished 2017 just around 3<span style="font-size: 13.2px;">0%, climbing from 23</span><span style="font-size: 13.2px;">% in 2016. For 2018 we predict continued growth to 36%. Due to nearline and Cold storage HDD dominance, SSDs provide <15% of the new capacity sold in the enterprise today. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 13.2px;">Note: SSDs are less than 15% of NEW capacity sold. they are less than 10% of total capacity</span><br />
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By Application:</div>
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<ul>
<li style="color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">SSDs replace mission critical 10K/15K HDDs at a very fast rate as cost per IOPs is equivalent or better. SSDs should replace 90% of this market eventually</li>
<li style="color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">SSDs in server markets are growing steadily in PCIe and SATA applications</li>
<li style="color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">SSDs continue to make little impact in nearline and cold storage applications</li>
<li style="color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">TLC utilization will support SSD growth in all applications</li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-size: 13.2px;">Reasons for methodical increase:</span></div>
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<ul style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 0.5em 0px; padding: 0px 2.5em;">
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;">SSD $/GB Pricing is still 10x HDD Pricing in most enteprise applications</li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;">SSD Prices are dropping but so are HDD prices. no crossover coming</li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;">Anything with $/IOPS Metric is moving to SSD. Anything with $/GB Metric (Nearline/Cold) is staying HDD</li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;">Enterprise customers are slow to move and change configurations. 10K/15K HDDs still sell even though there is limited rationale for using them over SSDs</li>
</ul>
<div>
For details on attach rates, SSD pricing, HDD pricing, and cost assumptions over the next 5 years, contact us!<br />
<br />
From WDC presentation 90% of data is still HDD in 2022:<br />
<br />
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Side note: Optane (p4800x) and Fast NAND applications (Z-NAND and products from WDC/Hynix/Toshiba) will impact server NVMe SSDs sales for fastest applications. The Jury is still out on how much of a premium customers are willing to pay over NAND SSDs. </div>
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<div style="color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">
<a href="http://www.mkwventures.com/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">www.mkwventures.com</a></div>
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MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-84985981728968489152018-01-03T11:44:00.003-08:002018-01-03T11:48:01.172-08:00SSD Growth Forecast in Compute Markets: Client Notebooks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fKglIeFlc0Y/Wk0xOU7gYWI/AAAAAAAAAHw/dUXwTVKtbtQAd5k6ZpSwBneNAAsYzaDAwCEwYBhgL/s1600/mkw%2Bventures%2Blogo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="251" data-original-width="305" height="164" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fKglIeFlc0Y/Wk0xOU7gYWI/AAAAAAAAAHw/dUXwTVKtbtQAd5k6ZpSwBneNAAsYzaDAwCEwYBhgL/s200/mkw%2Bventures%2Blogo.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
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SSD sales are growing and attach rate is increasing in all compute markets. The question is: How Fast? How Much? <br />
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Projections for SSDs from a number of outlets are 15-19% unit growth and 15-20% Revenue growth. We have all the details behind those numbers if you want them but some specifics on attach rates. </div>
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Client Notebook SSD attach rate finished 2017 just around 50%, climbing from 20% in 2014. For 2018 we predict continued steady growth fueled by SSD/NAND price drops. The average attach rate for 2018 will exceed 55% ... growing to almost 70% by end of 2019..... if NAND Prices start to drop as expected. No tipping point is coming.... </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Reasons for methodical increase: </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>SSD $/GB Pricing is still 8x HDD Pricing</li>
<li>SSD Prices are dropping but so are HDD prices. SSD $/GB multiplier is 3x HDD in 2021</li>
<li>Many people still want large capacity drives</li>
<li>SSD performance is better than HDD, but it is not required for any application</li>
</ul>
<div>
For details on attach rates, SSD pricing, HDD pricing, and cost assumptions over the next 5 years, contact us!</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Side note: at this point, we dont see an impact of Optane SSDs or Memory on these numbers. Optane doesn't impact notebook market at this time. See Desktop report summary for impact on that market.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Mark Webb</div>
<div>
<a href="http://www.mkwventures.com/" target="_blank">www.mkwventures.com</a></div>
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MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-62375395749199454012017-11-17T13:58:00.000-08:002017-11-20T12:17:16.822-08:00Optane DIMMS: What will we learn in next 6 months?<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PVm00MeugvM/Wg9VNKrQHGI/AAAAAAAAAHQ/1iFEmaSsKUYTde5oicL2P-lqD5AGPq1pgCEwYBhgL/s1600/optane%2Blaunch%2Bdate.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="210" data-original-width="202" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PVm00MeugvM/Wg9VNKrQHGI/AAAAAAAAAHQ/1iFEmaSsKUYTde5oicL2P-lqD5AGPq1pgCEwYBhgL/s200/optane%2Blaunch%2Bdate.JPG" width="192" /></a></div>
<br />
This past week Intel announced more Optane SSDs for Client and Enterprise. These are nice products, faster than NAND based products in most metrics, and available at 2-3x the prices of NAND based products. But these products are not the highest and best use of 3D Xoint. And Samsung has announced competing products.<br />
<br />
In a separate announcement, Navin Shenoy stated that Optane DIMMs will be available in servers in 2H 2018 and that the market could be $8B for Optane DIMMS in 2021. This is far higher than all other Optane or 3D Xpoint applications combined. Optane is meant for DIMMS.<br />
<br />
Over the next few months, we will investigate and learn a few things that will confirm or reject that $8B opportunity that Intel announced.<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>What is in a Optane DIMM?</b> How much DRAM is onboard? That will determine the cost.</li>
<li><b>How fast will an Optane DIMM be?</b> People say it works at DDR4 speed. Is the speed really the same speed as DDR4 Server DIMMs?</li>
<li><b>What will the price be?</b> Some companies will want to max out server memory and Optane DIMMs will have high capacity. But most companies will make trade off decisions on price vs performance. Initial comment from Intel was "half the price". As long as its the same speed as server DRAM DIMMs that will be game changing. If its slower .... hmmm.</li>
<li><b>What is the optimal DRAM DIMM to Optane DIMM ratio in a server configuration?</b> 1:1? 2:1? 1:2? 1:12?</li>
<li><b>How many applications will have been optimized for persistent memory by end of 2018? </b>All of the above comments basically ignore the "persistence" aspect. NVDIMMs have been around for a while and only 1-2% of servers are using them. Will Optane change this? </li>
</ul>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Fortunately, we will have answers to all these questions before modules are available in 2H 2018. I am sure Intel will share all the details and specifics! Wait .... what??? OK... you will have to get the details from us instead.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Mark Webb</div>
<div>
www.mkwventures.com</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tVz_9_3vN7Q/WMcxUdJc0RI/AAAAAAAAAEs/kBO-QancdbE0NL8NUZMXJpEWNOAjGWycACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/mkw%2Bphone%2Bnumber%2Bblog.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="77" data-original-width="250" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tVz_9_3vN7Q/WMcxUdJc0RI/AAAAAAAAAEs/kBO-QancdbE0NL8NUZMXJpEWNOAjGWycACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/mkw%2Bphone%2Bnumber%2Bblog.JPG" /></a></div>
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MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-23218933194486665532017-10-15T20:38:00.001-07:002017-10-17T08:29:57.635-07:00Where Do Optane DIMMS Fit In?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fXBZXtt0_9U/WeQo-QsRn5I/AAAAAAAAAGo/JXTE6nPNO_QoxQwESSncqjAN6-J2bsVbgCLcBGAs/s1600/optane%2Bpics.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="241" data-original-width="191" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fXBZXtt0_9U/WeQo-QsRn5I/AAAAAAAAAGo/JXTE6nPNO_QoxQwESSncqjAN6-J2bsVbgCLcBGAs/s200/optane%2Bpics.JPG" width="158" /></a></div>
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An over-simplified
look at Storage/Memory options for Servers. </div>
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When you need more memory, NVM, and are willing to sacrifice some speed, Optane DIMMS make sense. They should be available early in 2018?</div>
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<ul>
<li>DRAM DIMM alone is fastest and has lots of suppliers</li>
<li>NVDIMM-N is available at high cost if NVM is needed</li>
<li>Optane DIMMS allow more Random access memory at lower cost. its
NVM. It is slower than DRAM.</li>
<li>SSDs are improvement on HDD. Optane SSDS are fastest (latency)
SSDs available</li>
<li>Optane DIMMS take off in volume if the cost is significantly
lower than DRAM DIMMS.</li>
</ul>
<o:p></o:p><br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Option<o:p></o:p></div>
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Speed<o:p></o:p></div>
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Cost<o:p></o:p></div>
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Notes<o:p></o:p></div>
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NAND NVMe SSD<o:p></o:p></div>
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+<o:p></o:p></div>
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$<o:p></o:p></div>
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Fast enough for most<o:p></o:p></div>
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Optane SSD<o:p></o:p></div>
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++<o:p></o:p></div>
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$$<o:p></o:p></div>
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Fastest SSD Around<o:p></o:p></div>
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Optane DIMM <o:p></o:p></div>
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++++<o:p></o:p></div>
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$$$<o:p></o:p></div>
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Assume minimal DRAM<o:p></o:p></div>
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DRAM only<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
++++++<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
$$$$<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Fastest, but not NVM<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
NVDIMM-N<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.85pt;" valign="top" width="156"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
+++++<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
$$$$$<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 116.9pt;" valign="top" width="156"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
NAND+DRAM<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-79274413700731467672017-10-15T09:33:00.003-07:002017-10-15T09:33:42.366-07:00HDDs are dead? On life support? Or enjoying mature lifestyle?<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xM5I5u1zHFU/WeONqTm_29I/AAAAAAAAAGQ/jHzHbJyPlvgpJpj1WIqyIGA6tRkJfXkLQCKgBGAs/s1600/3d%2Bnand.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="207" data-original-width="206" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xM5I5u1zHFU/WeONqTm_29I/AAAAAAAAAGQ/jHzHbJyPlvgpJpj1WIqyIGA6tRkJfXkLQCKgBGAs/s1600/3d%2Bnand.JPG" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I saw more articles this week on death of HDD. Or that they
will be dead in a couple years. If we want to use aging analysis, they are mid 50s, past
midlife, not getting any younger but still active, healthy, and planning on watching
their grandchildren grow for a couple decades.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><br /></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><br /></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><br /></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><br /></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><br /></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><br /></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><br /></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><br /></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>Recent data: <o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li>HDD units outship SSDs more than 2:1</li>
<li>HDD Bits outship SSDs 10:1</li>
<li>HDD increase in bits shipped was larger than SSD increase in
bits.</li>
<li>HDD units are dropping and EBs shipped are increasing at
modest rates.</li>
</ul>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>What is happening:<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li>SSDs are increasing penetration in PCs at a modest rate. Hovering
around 50% by end of year</li>
<li>Performance enterprise HDDs are being replaced by SSDs. But 10K
and 15K HDDs still are close in sales to Enterprise SSDs. Even though there is
no technical reason for this.</li>
<li>Nearline HDDs are growing in capacity shipped. SSDs are a
small cache (<2% of capacity)</li>
<li>Slow capacity storage is 99% HDD or Optical or Tape</li>
</ul>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>Why:<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li>SSDs still cost 7-10X more than HDDs per Bit. It turns out
we are storing bits? Who knew?</li>
<li>HDD ASP decreased in last year, SSD ASP increased. That was
not supposed to happen.</li>
<li>Nearline and enterprise capacity needs are driving large
increase in HDD capacities.</li>
</ul>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>Prediction:</u><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li>SSD ASP per bit being lower than HDD is almost a fantasy
now. 2025 for being “close/ 2x”</li>
<li>SSD penetration into PCs will grow from ~50% to ~70% over
the next 6 years</li>
<li>SSD will continue to grow at steady, no tipping point, rate.
SSDs will account for 25% of bits shipped by 2022… or 2024 …. Or 2026 … let’s
just say a long time</li>
</ul>
<div>
Mark Webb</div>
<div>
www.mkwventures.com</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tVz_9_3vN7Q/WMcxUdJc0RI/AAAAAAAAAEs/kBO-QancdbE0NL8NUZMXJpEWNOAjGWycACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/mkw%2Bphone%2Bnumber%2Bblog.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="77" data-original-width="250" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tVz_9_3vN7Q/WMcxUdJc0RI/AAAAAAAAAEs/kBO-QancdbE0NL8NUZMXJpEWNOAjGWycACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/mkw%2Bphone%2Bnumber%2Bblog.JPG" /></a></div>
<div>
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<o:p></o:p><br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-37274189373211296882017-03-29T13:09:00.003-07:002017-03-29T13:09:36.702-07:003D Xpoint Optane for Enterprise and Consumer<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;">
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<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-6575699578029381921" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 546px;">
<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NKnS1e-RWFg/WIAYES0YG0I/AAAAAAAAAEQ/cG0lKbhaZ5kWg8eobOGf_VyqSJQxDKe3wCPcB/s1600/xpoint%2Bpic.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NKnS1e-RWFg/WIAYES0YG0I/AAAAAAAAAEQ/cG0lKbhaZ5kWg8eobOGf_VyqSJQxDKe3wCPcB/s1600/xpoint%2Bpic.JPG" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a>Optane 3D Xpoint for Enterprise and Consumer</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />Intel announced more updates on status of their Optane products. I wanted to say launched but then I realized that actually no product is yet available to the public... soon it will be I hope.<br /><br /><br />1) Enterprise P4800x SSD: Its arguably the fastest SSD in the world depending on which metric you choose. Intel's focus is on low latency... which is important since transactions involving a queue depth of 32 are quite rare. Its also expensive and only shipping in one density and limited quantities to limited customers. It also supports a virtual memory activity where it looks like memory to the server. Still waiting on third party benchmarks but at this point it is fast and shipping somewhere for revenue.<br /><br />On the downside, the internet is<u> exploding</u> with "it was supposed to be 1000x faster with 1000x endurance!!!!" and "I waiting 18 month for this?!!!!" .<br /><br />OK its 8-10x faster and the cells last 2-3x as long as NAND. Its still a great drive for certain Enterprise Applications.<br /><br /><br />2) Intel Optane memory: This was announced to press at same time... but embargoed for a few more days. 16/32GB cache device announced also at CES.<br /><br />As I mentioned when this came out earlier at CES... caching is a great idea. 95% of the performance at much lower cost... when it works. Intel showed data that when combined with a HDD is improved boot and program loading performance. There is some concern that these metrics were cherry picked but we will see when third party benchmarks comes out (THG???? Anandtech???)<br /><br />The price was good $44-$77, it makes a difference in performance, and Intel is hyping the heck out of it. If PC OEMS push it... it could be a big deal. I am not sure what percentage of chipsets accept it today, but I will try it out ASAP when it comes out (See... Intel even tricked me into buying a Kaby Lake PC with 200 Chipset!).<br /><br />It it better than more DRAM? or a 256GB SSD? who knows for now.<br /><br /><br />This just in... <b>Optane, as a NVMe SSD/Cache is not 1000x faster and is not going to change the world like the steam engine, the internet, or the cell phone (SORRY)</b> ... but it appears to be a option for fast performance in some applications ... if you can buy it somewhere.<br /><br />More to come when it actually appears!<br /><br />Mark Webb<br />www.mkwventures.com<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bUKxa6EVXHA/WD0QyoGYeoI/AAAAAAAAACs/NLzbNy6Qgrw6b7_RSaUTa4QMPFV93VSdgCPcB/s1600/Capture.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bUKxa6EVXHA/WD0QyoGYeoI/AAAAAAAAACs/NLzbNy6Qgrw6b7_RSaUTa4QMPFV93VSdgCPcB/s1600/Capture.JPG" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a></div>
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MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-2160051786618305272017-03-13T16:59:00.001-07:002017-03-29T13:14:18.878-07:00Top 5 Things to Know About SSD ManufacturingTop 5 Things to Know About SSD Manufacturing<br />
<br />
SSDs are among the fastest growing technology areas in electronics. Growth of 40-80% per year in units has been typical since 2006. Questions about "when will they completely replace HDDs" are common for technical and business people alike.<br />
<br />
As with most technology areas, Manufacturing is a huge factor in business success. Some topics in SSD Manufacturing:<br />
<br />
1) Most SSD OEMS outsource some or all of their SSD manufacturing. Outsourcing to contract manufacturers is prevalent in the electronics industry. SSDs are no different. Flexible capacity, ability to achieve low costs through volume, minimal capital spending, time to market are all great reasons to outsource SSD manufacturing. EMS/ODM providers include top systems and memory module companies.<br />
<br />
2) Many SSD OEMs utilize 3rd part controllers and designs. Controller companies like Silicon Motion, Phison, Marvell, Maxiotek and the former Sandforce can provide controllers and reference designs. While most companies strive to develop internal controllers, 3rd party controllers and designs are widespread in consumer and client SSDs. These controller companies work with NAND vendors to develop advanced error correction and features and may outperform internal controllers made by NAND manufacturers. They definitely have the development and time to market expertise.<br />
<br />
3) Consumer and Client SSDs are under tremendous price pressure. A simple look at NAND ASPs compared to Client SSD ASPs will show that SSDs are under margin pressure. There is not much, if any, margin added by the non-NAND portion. How do we deal with this reality? Outsource to minimize engineering and manufacturing cost. It is difficult to spend millions on engineering in a segment with minimal margin uplift.<br />
<br />
4) Form factors are changing and difficult to predict. All form factors generally move to smaller solutions ... but predicting exactly when is difficult. Most companies balance the future form factor (M.2/BGA) volumes with the conservative old form factor (2.5"). Outsource companies can provide all form factors and even design custom ones with minimal engineering cost.<br />
<br />
5) The above comments apply well to Intel, Sandisk, WD, Micron, Toshiba, Lite-on, Kingston, etc. Two companies are obviously different. Samsung has large enough scale and engineering resource to support controllers, internal manufacturing on a wide variety of designs. As long as they can execute and not run out of resources as form factors and interfaces change, that is great. Second, Apple is famous for custom interfaces and form factors and these pop in Macbook teardowns. They always look for internal processor support to meet needs. The strategy for custom engineering and the high margins on their products allow this.<br />
<br />
<br />
For more specifics and numbers on SSD manufacturing and what strategy is best, contact us today<br />
<br />
Mark Webb<br />
MKW Ventures Consulting LLC.<br />
www.mkwventures.com<br />
SSD Manufacturing<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tVz_9_3vN7Q/WMcxUdJc0RI/AAAAAAAAAEk/wEFPaA1wnLYh1LIAN4QBxlTg4C39lgaVgCLcB/s1600/mkw%2Bphone%2Bnumber%2Bblog.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tVz_9_3vN7Q/WMcxUdJc0RI/AAAAAAAAAEk/wEFPaA1wnLYh1LIAN4QBxlTg4C39lgaVgCLcB/s1600/mkw%2Bphone%2Bnumber%2Bblog.JPG" /></a></div>
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<br />
<br />MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-30738006512913135972016-01-05T09:57:00.003-08:002016-01-05T09:58:46.321-08:00Seagate on why HDD replacement is not easy<div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-weight: bold; padding: 5px 5px 0px 0px;">
Article from Digitimes... Seagates input on HDD replacement.... yes I realize it may be biased :-)</div>
<div class="H1" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 2.2em; font-weight: bold; padding: 5px 5px 0px 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="H1" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 2.2em; font-weight: bold; padding: 5px 5px 0px 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="H1" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 2.2em; font-weight: bold; padding: 5px 5px 0px 0px;">
SSDs not a simple solution for replacing HDDs: Q&A with Seagate executive</div>
<div class="Author" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12.8px; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 5px 0px 10px;">
Max Wang, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Tuesday 5 January 2016]</div>
<div class="P1" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
During a Digitimes interview, Global Sales and Operations senior vice president B.S. Teh for Seagate Technology indicated that it is not simple for SSDs (solid-state drives) to replace HDDs (hard disk drives), simply because SSD prices are three times that of HDD prices for applications targeting consumer electronics and possibly more than 10 times for applications for enterprise storage.</div>
<div class="p2" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">
<strong>Q:</strong> As slow growth in global PC demand and the increasing use of SSDs has affected the business operations of HDD vendors, how does Seagate cope with the impact?</div>
<div class="p1" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<strong>A:</strong> Although global HDD shipments will decrease from 550-600 million drives in 2014 to nearly 500 million units in 2015, total storage capacity will increase from nearly 500 exabytes (10<sup>9</sup> gigabyte) to 530-550 exabytes. While having stepped into SSDs with initial SSD models launched in 2013, Seagate focuses on the HDD business and develops models featuring high storage capacity and efficiency as well as low cost, for which Seagate aims to reduce the average shipment price for HDDs to one-tenth of that for SSDs. Seagate has been decreasing its reliance on PC-use HDDs through increased shipments for applications for cloud computing-based storage, consumer electronics, security surveillance and enterprise storage, with the revenue proportion for PC-use HDDs slipping from nearly 63% in 2010 to an estimated nearly 43% in 2015. For the PC-use market segment, Seagate will launch 1TB HDD models for use in notebooks in 2016.</div>
<div class="p2" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">
<strong>Q:</strong> Apart from PC-use HDDs, how does Seagate look to global demand for storage from consumer electronics users and enterprises?</div>
<div class="p1" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<strong>A:</strong> HDDs used in consumer electronics take up nearly 15% of Seagate's consolidated revenues at present. In a bid to enhance marketing of such HDDs, Seagate has acquired LaCie and Lyve. As demand for enterprise storage is much larger than that for consumer electronics storage in terms of capacity and shipment value, Seagate has invested US$700-800 million annually in R&D for software and hardware used in enterprise storage.</div>
<div class="p2" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">
<strong>Q:</strong> In the market segment of enterprise storage, system vendors such as Hewlett-Packard and Dell procure HDDs for use in servers or storage equipment, but some of enterprises have skipped such vendors and acquired storage equipment through service providers, cloud computing service operators or ODMs/OEMs, has such change in business model influenced HDD vendors?</div>
<div class="p1" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<strong>A:</strong> My personal opinion is that the influence is in order visibility and ordered volume, because orders released by system vendors are clearly visible with shipments able to be estimated while orders released by ODMs/OEMs or service providers are more likely to fluctuate and ordered volumes are relatively difficult to estimate. For shipments to the latter, Seagate has strictly controlled inventory level to minimize risks.</div>
<div class="p2" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">
<strong>Q:</strong> How does Seagate view Dell's merger acquisition of EMC at US$33.15 per share for a total price of US$67 billion?</div>
<div class="p1" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<strong>A:</strong> Both Dell and EMC are Seagate's clients and Seagate is happy to see the merger. Both companies' complementary resources can be integrated and the operational scale can be enlarged via the merger.</div>
<div class="p2" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">
<strong>Q:</strong> Market analysts think that China-based Tsinghua Unigroup's stake investment in Western Digital will impact Seagate's business in the China market, what are your opinions?</div>
<div class="p1" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<strong>A:</strong> Seagate is not worried about any negative impact related to the investment stake on Seagate's business cooperation with existing China-based clients. The reason is simple, that is, under free market competition, users are unwilling to concentrate HDD procurement in a single supplier no matter who invests in Western Digital.</div>
<div class="p2" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">
<strong>Q:</strong> How do you view development in the Taiwan storage market?</div>
<div class="p1" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<strong>A:</strong> There have been significant changes in the Taiwan storage market, mainly a shift from PC-use demand to large demand by data centers as well as some Taiwan-based makers', including Foxconn Electronics, Quanta Computer and Inventec, having engaged in server production which has become important for Taiwan and is expected to be expanded steadily over the next 5-10 years.<br />
<br />
<br />
Mark@mkwventures.com<br />
#CES2016<br />
#Storagevisions<br />
<br /></div>
MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-9446924294976988592016-01-04T00:30:00.001-08:002016-01-04T15:07:51.934-08:00SSD Shipment Forecast in Units and TBs... <br />
Predicted SSD shipments based on IHS, IDC, DE published data and my own inputs.<br />
<br />
Nice growth ... CAGR is 15% in units going forward. 40% in TBs shipped.<br />
<br />
Neither will lead to SSDs overtaking HDDs in next few years<br />
<br />
Note1: Enterprise and Client are projected to be about the same<br />
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If you plug in the TBs shipped and assume 30-35% ASP/GB reduction, you can see revenue increase is "Muted" ... maybe 5-10%. There is another article by a research firm showing 40% REVENUE growth CAGR for SSDs. <u>This is definitely not true for SSD vendors</u>. It might get closer to 40% if you include NAND vendors, SSD vendors, Storage systems (Like EMC/Netapp), in house systems (like Google/AWS) etc.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-90uXny8qr3s/VoosEu2TsEI/AAAAAAAAABc/f5p71mS3gTk/s1600/capacity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-90uXny8qr3s/VoosEu2TsEI/AAAAAAAAABc/f5p71mS3gTk/s320/capacity.jpg" width="320" /></a> 40% CAGR</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DHUDVCS52TA/VoosQSyuxlI/AAAAAAAAABk/sahXJy_YtlY/s1600/units.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DHUDVCS52TA/VoosQSyuxlI/AAAAAAAAABk/sahXJy_YtlY/s320/units.jpg" width="320" /></a> 15% CAGR</div>
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Mark Webb, Mark@mkwventures.com</div>
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#storagevisions, #CES2016</div>
<br />MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-31189239078789488432016-01-03T22:36:00.003-08:002016-01-03T22:36:44.660-08:00Consumer SSD adoption challenges <br />
Getting to a market penetration in Consumer has not reached 50% yet ... it will close at 30% or less in 2015. Getting there has a number of challenges... some can be addressed ... others are more challenging<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>SSDs cost more than HDDs.</li>
<ul>
<li>If we go with the cheapest SSD known to man and we use rack rate pricing for HDD, SSDs are 5x more expensive. it drops to 3x by 2018</li>
<li>If we take minimum cost to PC ODM, a 240GB SSD would cost >$50. A 500GB HDD is $23. The difference is more than than the total OEM Profit margin on a notebook PC</li>
<li>ODMs refuse to add 50c to a BOM ... let alone $20+</li>
</ul>
<li>Consumers don't know impact of SSDs on performance. Actually they don't judge PCs on amount of storage in GBs... not good for SSDs</li>
<li>SSDs are not instant on. Its nice to say SSDs are 50 times faster than HDDs. In reality they boot 50% faster and they load applications 50% faster ... which might not be noticeable in most consumer uses</li>
<li>There is no competition to have fastest storage in notebooks. Apple needs SSDs to keep its high performance $1000+ price point lead. Intel needs SSDs to compete in the same market. The average notebook is $500 and is not a major storage performance competition</li>
</ul>
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There is hope:</div>
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<ul>
<li>Corporate PCs are a major market and low density, high speed SSDs withe fast backups are required</li>
<li>A competition could come out with either Lenovo, Acer, Dell, etc fully converting to SSD to push the market. </li>
<li>a 2:1 or Chromebook or alternative Cloud/small fast storage market would drive SSD sales up. a 128G SSD + 128GB cloud would be a perfect $500 convertable</li>
<li>DRAM faces similar challenges. But the difference is that Intel pushes for Faster DRAM and marketing pushes for it as well. and eventually, the price of the new memory matches the slower memory which causes sales tipping point. Intel could force people to use PCIe SSD on future chipsets.</li>
</ul>
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Until then, combinations of HDD/SSD or HDD alone will be most of the PCs sold.</div>
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#storagevisions, #CES2016</div>
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Mark Webb, mark@mkwventures.com</div>
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MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-564327128555301055.post-87329206535796237082016-01-03T20:35:00.003-08:002016-01-03T20:55:41.281-08:00Which NVM Storage Technology will dominate 3 years from now?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><b>NVM is a popular way to add
performance to a storage or server system</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In approximate order increasing
performance and cost:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Replace SATA/SAS HDDs with SATA/SAS
SSDs</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Use PCIe NVMe accelerator cards.
Simple add in cards or complex stack changes to reduce latency</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Add NVDIMMs to put NAND on the
memory bus</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">New NVM is now available (Like
Xpoint) to allow major changes to memory and storage allocation. And there are
multiple options on how to use these.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Other Caching options</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><b>The challenge is to make the tradeoffs
for use case, cost, and performance.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">To decide which technologies will dominate:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">What will the costs be in 3 years? (hint:
1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, 1-4x) … details and checkpoints need to be reviewed periodically
to see we hit cost goals.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Will people rewrite applications
and change architectures to take advantage of the technologies?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Does the market desire generic,
open source solutions or customer optimized ones?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Update on actual implementation is key
question for Storage Experts this week</span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px; line-height: 19.9733px;">#storagevisions, #CES2016</span></div>
<br />MKW Ventureshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07484446504738035839noreply@blogger.com0